Discover a marine snail with iron foot

2003/11/12 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia

They have discovered an unusual sea snail in the hydrothermal chimneys at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. The peculiarity of the snail is the structure of the foot, formed by sulfite iron minerals, that is, pyrite and greigite scales.

This structure was only known to date in some pluricellular beings of the Cantabrian Age, of rapid evolution. However, studies based on DNA and snail anatomy have concluded that this snail is younger.

According to the researchers, these ferric sulfite minerals come from hydrothermal fluids segregated by the chimneys of the seabed, which being dispersed by the fluid, absorb the materials contained therein.

Photo: S. Bengston (Swedish Museum of Natural History) and M. Segonznc (IFREMER).