This is a part of the Wikipedia article used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). Its heart is, proportionately speaking, unusually large for any animal: the heart comprises approximately 4% of its body volume. This species is considered to be one of the most peculiar deep-sea hydrothermal-vent gastropods, and it is the only known extant animal that incorporates iron sulfide into its skeleton. The snail's oesophageal gland houses symbiotic gammaproteobacteria from which the snail appears to obtain its nourishment. The scaly-foot gastropod is a species of deep-sea hydrothermal-vent snail living up to 2,800 metres below the oceans surface.
The foot is also unusual, being armored at the sides with iron-mineralised sclerites. The shell is of a unique construction, with three layers the outer layer consists of iron sulfides, the middle layer is equivalent to the organic periostracum found in other gastropods, and the innermost layer is made of aragonite. In 2019, it was declared endangered on the IUCN Red List, the first species to be listed as such due to risks from deep-sea mining of its vent habitat that also produce high-quality metal ores.
squamiferum differs greatly from other deep-sea gastropods, even the closely related neomphalines. This vent-endemic gastropod is known only from deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Indian Ocean, where it has been found at depths of about 2,400–2,900 m. Chrysomallon squamiferum, commonly known as the scaly-foot gastropod, scaly-foot snail, or sea pangolin, is a species of deep-sea hydrothermal-vent snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Peltospiridae.