The Scaly-Foot Snail! A deep-sea knight in shining armor and weirdo. Incredibly unique, the snail only has 2 tentacles, and cultivates gammaproteobacteria in their mucus glands. And for reference on that sick heart fact, a human’s heart to body ratio is about *half a percent.* Unfortunately, these fellas are greatly threatened by deep-sea mining (which causes untold damage to ecosystems we barely understand). Deep-sea mining is often under-regulated due to the lack of real knowledge about what we could be permanently messing up (or how much we’ve messed up already!), and so even these critters, though endangered, are unprotected. So, a word of advice, if anyone ever asks, favor at least delaying deep-sea mining until we know more about deep-sea ecosystems!
(Wow!)
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