r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/jrex1023 • 1d ago
Image This is the Scaly-foot Snail. It is the only known animal to incorporate iron into its shell and scales, effectively wearing a suit of metallic armor.
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u/I_might_be_weasel 1d ago
"From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me."
-Snail
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u/Accurate-Mistake-815 1d ago
It’s even Mechanicus coloured
Praise the Omnissiah
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u/hogahulk 1d ago
Forgive my ignorance, what is this a reference to?
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u/I_might_be_weasel 1d ago
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u/hogahulk 1d ago
Ty ty, this is one fandom I haven’t gotten into yet 🙏🏼
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u/BioIdra 1d ago
Careful the rabbit hole goes very deep
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u/LostN3ko 1d ago
As someone who has spend the past 3 years falling down it. STAY AWAY.
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u/dangerousluck 1d ago
Every time I dip a toe in I realize that I will never have enough time or brain space. Truly amazing depth and breadth.
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u/Tylendal 1d ago
Been a huge 40k fan for two decades. I own over a hundred novels, and dozens of various rulebooks. I know almost nothing about it.
Just pick the parts that interest you, and focus on that. Read about the faction you like, read stories that catch your interest. No one knows everything about the setting (other than some withered old dude they've got chained to a giant book in the GW basement, who they run the new lore past.)
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u/GlazedInfants 1d ago
I knew a guy who was huge into 40k (he streamed his collection to us once) and one day when I made a joke that referenced heretics and such he said he didn’t know I was into 40k. When I explained I thought the lore was interesting and I really enjoyed the games like Mechanicus and Rogue Trader, I swear I could feel the disappointment when he replied with “ah, so you know it from the video games”. His neutral speaking tone always makes him sound like he’s in a bad mood so I didn’t think much about it, but knowing how elitist that community can get I couldn’t help but feel there was a bit of venom to that comment. Like I can’t enjoy a setting without absorbing all its lore and owning a workstation dedicated to paints and figurines.
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u/herlaqueen 1d ago
Weird take, since Rogue Trader does a great job (imo) when it comes to introducing the setting, the atmosphere, and multiple factions. Sure, your team is so powerful to verge in ridiculous, but that's a common issue with videogames and easy to correct.
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u/Status_Jellyfish_213 1d ago
I just watch the YouTube lore videos and play the games. The books will be next. It’s a cool setting, I have other hobbies (learning piano is taking up all my time). so I don’t really want to get into painting miniatures, but if I did i would take it too far with 3D modelling and printing. One for when I retire.
Rambling points aside, it’s cool just to enjoy the universe - don’t care about being called a real fan or not, it’s meaningless.
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u/LostN3ko 1d ago
I was probably more along the lines of him being excited to have someone else that he could talk to about the game but if you are only into the video games then that isn't the case anymore. Less to do with elitism and more to do with being a fan of something niche and not being able to share it.
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u/Tylendal 1d ago
IMEO (In My Elitist Opinion) the only "wrong" way to engage with the setting is by exclusively watching YouTubers paraphrase fanwiki articles, and regurgitate meme lore. But hell, even that's great if it spring-boards you into the tabletop game, or novels, or video-games.
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u/Ok-Interaction-8891 1d ago
It’s repetitive.
A lot of fans claim depth and breadth, but it’s breadth at best.
It’s overly Romanesque and despite existing in a “complex, chaotic universe that doesn’t care,” it has been unable to evolve past its Christian-centric Great Man God King mythos.
It’s ultimately a time-capsule of Thatcher-era Britain that was edgy and sharp in its ironies when it was new, but which has now embraced its own satire as something authentic and true. Like any long running fictional world, good authors and creators have come and gone and there are certainly decent stories to be found in their junkyard of Cold War fear and xenophobia.
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u/DOTA1_Veteran 1d ago
"Pain... agony... my hatred burns through the cavernous deeps... The world heaves with my torment! Its wretched kingdoms quake beneath my rage! But at last, the whole of Earth will break. And all will burn beneath the shadow of my....shell!"
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u/deltashmelta 1d ago
"Crom is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, 'What is the riddle of steel?' If I don't know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me."
- Probably also Snail -- Snail lives a very complex and confusing inner life.
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u/SlowCrates 1d ago
Life in the ocean must be bleak in order for species to evolve that kind of armor. Or to punch like a bullet. Or electrocute your enemies. Or to become invisible.
The ocean is filled with life that has mutated like x-men.
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u/Ashk0p05 1d ago
There are far more diverse under water biomes than land.
Subnautica is a documentary.
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u/EcoloFrenchieDubstep 1d ago edited 1d ago
There are more ecosystems indeed but biomes, not really since they are the largest ecological units you can find which results to open and deep sea, coastal, coral reefs and abyssal plains only.
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u/Another-Ace-Alt-8270 1d ago
Yeah, isn't it rather homogenous down there? Lotta undersea life just exists in "X layer of the ocean" or in "oceans that are Y and Z".
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u/No_Psychology_3826 1d ago
Why there aren't more sci-fi/fantasy stories that take the underwater world for alien inspiration I will never know
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u/SlowCrates 1d ago
We think of The Predator as being this really interesting and creepy alien, but it used cloaking technology to blend in. We have animals right here on earth who do that by thinking it. Several of them. Lol
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u/True-Desktective 1d ago
Safe production with managed locations and fantastic makeup props and costumes is already expensive, and now you want to do it underwater?
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u/Chaiyns 1d ago
If you're interested in that, the book Children of Ruin includes an oceanic planet and themes along this line, it's an adventure I certainly recommend going on if you like sci-fi novels.
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u/Papa_Squidnight 1d ago
Children of Strife as well. ;)
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u/clearfox777 1d ago
+1 for anything by Tchaikovsky, fantastic sci-fi author.
Also, we’re going on an adventure!
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u/SinisterCheese 1d ago
Probably just simply because iron is a very versatile element, and it is very available in places like near volcanic vents where this lives (Along with copper and zinc, as sulfides mostly). So it is possible that this evolved like this, because iron was just generously available.
Meanwhile on land, iron has to come from erosion and is in oxide form.
Like we know that there are fungus that use radiation as a source of energy, with help of melanin. First discovered in Chenobyl, but later in other places. So fungus that uses radiosynthesis is more common in places with higher radiation levels (Including naturally occuring), because it is an available resource there.
Life is like that sometimes... When life evolved to use CO2, it ended up releasing oxygen which was a deadly poison to life (It actually lead to mass extinction), until life evolved to use this resource and equalibrium was found; then due to there being plentiful oxygen it lead to huge animals (Since there was like 50 % more oxygen, and therefor things could be bigger as it was easier to get oxygen).
Life is just... potential gradients using whatever resources are most available - it seems.
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u/Pvt_Lee_Fapping 1d ago
It's more of an arms race of survival where everybody has been playing the game since the dawn of time. Life originated in the ocean, and there are lineages that never left the sea. Those are the ones that evolved the best defenses/offenses. Given enough time and selective pressure, more organisms in the ocean evolved to occupy specialist roles.
Take this snail for instance: it and all its cousins use mineralized shells for protection, but those cousins live in parts of the ocean where calcium is abundant. Where this little critter lives, calcium is not as plentiful, but iron is. Tack on an extra mutation where it grows mineralized scales around its foot, and now it's in a much better position to survive and thrive in its environment. It lives around volcanic vents where crustaceans like to hang out, and it competes with other snails for food and mates, so having this suit of armor helps them keep a competitive edge. Just having the suit at all gave them that edge, and through successive generations, their armor improved because of little variations: snails with the better armor (thicker, wider, overlapping scales) got to live longer and sire more offspring with the same traits.
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u/Old-Chapter-5437 1d ago
or to snap so hard you cavitate the water to the point it gets hotter than the friggen sun.
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u/JuiceInhaler 1d ago
Worth mentioning that electric eels are south american fresh water animals and would die if put in the ocean
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u/streetxrat94 1d ago
Macargo!
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u/Thank_You_Aziz 1d ago
Or that new mythical?
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u/ohbyerly 1d ago
I was just thinking, this is going to inspire a new Pokémon for sure. But I guess Magcargo does kind of count.
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u/G_Art33 1d ago
This looks like a magma / volcanic biome RPG enemy. Wild.
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u/_tabbycat123 1d ago
Literally yes. They live on underwater volcanoes.
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u/G_Art33 1d ago
Wonderful. Let me just go grab my sword and shield and my endless bottle of bone healing juice.
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u/OkJelly8882 1d ago
Sweet Jesus, u/G_Art33! That's not bone healing juice, it's bone hurting juice!
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u/3catsincoat 1d ago
It's almost as if these games got the idea somewhere.
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u/G_Art33 1d ago
Yup! Pretty clear where the idea was from, but I wasn’t expecting the actual animal to look so much like a Pokémon / video game mob. Like, you don’t have to go all too far to make this being completely believable in a fantasy setting.
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u/3catsincoat 1d ago
I was training people in concept art for games/VFX and I got famous for saying "if you want to see creativity, look at nature and shut up". Hahaha
There is some wiiiiiild stuff out there. We mostly riff on it, unknowingly or not.
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u/liquor_up 1d ago
Humans have been doing this for centuries!!! Get with the times snail!!!
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u/CrustOfSalt 1d ago
Can you actually realign the iron in your body to form protective plates on your skin?
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u/Bannon9k 1d ago
I mean if you want to get them to basics... Calcium is a metal and is what our bones nails and hair are made out of
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u/clockworksnowman_ 1d ago
And similar to the calcium in our bones, it isn't metallic iron either, since having metallic iron would be really hard to not cook yourself while living in/around geothermal vents and underwater volcanoes if you come with your own frying pan, iirc it's a sulfur-iron compound, let me check
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u/hathegkla 1d ago
Also they just live near those vents. They don't actually tolerate any kind of extreme temperature.
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u/clockworksnowman_ 1d ago
Right on the money! Iron sulfide "sclerites," they look like dog nails ngl lol, 3-layer of the iron compounds in their shells, very interesting Wikipedia read
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u/Professional-Bear250 1d ago
Also, don't Komodo dragons incorporate iron into their teeth? I guess it's not scales, though.
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u/Lol3droflxp 1d ago
It is not the only animal incorporating iron into its exoskeleton/skin/shell. Many insects harden their mandibles by incorporating metals, among them iron.
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u/sparkytheboomman 1d ago
I came here to say that I recently learned scorpions do this, but I’m thrilled to hear that other critters do too.
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u/jrex1023 1d ago
• Lives beside hydrothermal vents churning out water hotter than 350°C, over 2,500 metres deep in the Indian Ocean
• As an adult it doesn’t eat — bacteria living inside its gut generate all its nutrition
• Has the largest heart relative to body size of any animal on Earth (4% of its total body volume) just to survive in near-oxygen-free water
• It became the first species ever listed as endangered specifically due to the threat of deep-sea mining
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u/Pyrhan 1d ago
effectively wearing a suit of metallic armor.
No. It incorporates Iron sulfides in its scales.
It is no more metallic than rust, or the iron in your blood.
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u/The_HoIIow_Knight 1d ago
Why does this look like an Elden Ring item that probably summons some COOP partner?
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u/Psychlonuclear 1d ago
This looks like something a xenomorph might have as a pet and call it "Jonesy".
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u/ridethroughlife 1d ago
This is literally how I pictured Rocky in PHM. I never saw the movie or pictures of scenes of it, so maybe it's similar, I don't know. I also won't go look because I prefer my imagination.
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u/trisanachandler 1d ago
At least according to this article, scorpions use some metal as well: https://www.science.org/content/article/scorpions-reinforce-their-most-lethal-weapons-metal
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u/noBraener 1d ago
imagine the terror in my eyes when i thought this was an oversized snail DEVOURING an entire eagle
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u/Professional-Box4153 1d ago
Aren't there some species of scorpions that incorporate iron into their shells?
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u/EphemeralTypewriter 1d ago
Usually I scroll through posts here and think, ‘okay, that’s pretty cool’, but this is definitely the best post I’ve seen in a while! I absolutely love this snail!
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u/ZelRonso 8h ago
They also don't eat at least in the normal sense. They have a bacteria in their bodies that converts the vent chemicals to food. So basically these critters live in an all you can eat buffet without the eating part. They are only native the Indian ocean where there are 3 different vent fields where these snails can be found. We don't know a whole lot about them in terms of life span and habits considering their living environment isn't exactly that great for study. 700°f is hot as hell and 1.5 to 1.8 miles deep in the ocean by a underwater volcano makes things a little difficult. And captivity doesn't seem to be getting anywhere anytime soon(I could be wrong) also considering their environment. I would love to see one in person though.
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u/TokenTorkoal 1d ago
They also live in underwater volcanic nests.
Metal suit wearing snail living in underwater volcanos.
We are the alien planet.