Thread by @evolambert

Deep sea mining is quickly moving from fantasy to imminent reality.

Read about the first animal (A SNAIL WITH AN IRON SHELL!) to be listed as endangered due to threat of mining in my latest for @NatureNews
nature.com/articles/d4158…
(Cool snail facts 👇 in thread)

@NatureNews The Scaly-foot snail (nicknamed the sea pangolin) is found on only 3 hydro thermal vents in the world. It's sustained by entirely chemo-synthetic bacteria housed within a special compartment in its esophagus.

@NatureNews It's heart is HUGE, making up 4% of its body mass. It serves as the center of a jacked up circulatory system basically devoted to keeping the bacteria alive.

@NatureNews It's the only animal we know of that INCORPORATES IRON INTO ITS SHELL. It's shell is so crack-resistant that engineers are trying to mimic its form to build better armor.

@NatureNews There are only ~600 HT-vents - “The public encounters hydrothermal vents up close - on TV they fill up the whole screen,” says Sigwart. “But we rarely zoom out and get a sense of just how tiny and isolated these habitats are.” says @sigwartae

@NatureNews @sigwartae @squamiferum says these sites are precious and fragile. “If one of these vents gets destroyed or damaged through mining, the snails can’t just colonize another vent - they disappear”