The chiton Ferreiraella populi has eight armored shell plates and an iron-clad radula.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by the primary taxonomic description (peer-reviewed) plus multiple independent journalistic sources; consistent with known chiton biology (magnetite-coated radula teeth). [cascade flags: aggregator_dropped_primary_exists,wikipedia_dropped_other_sources_exist | tier=silver indep_score=0.787 clusters=4 claim_tier=notable | framework convergence=partial on Original taxonomic description and associated SOSA/Pensoft press release, which most journalistic sources paraphrase, but independently corroborated by the primary scientific paper itself (upstreams: Sigwart et al. 2026 Biodiversity Data Journal species description (BDJ 14: e180491), Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance (SOSA) press materials) — publishers independent, evidence may not be | kind=empirical eligibility=high]
Sources
- This weird deep-sea creature was named by thousands of people online | ScienceDaily (seed:animals_and_wildlife)
- https://bdj.pensoft.net/article/180491/ (corroboration)
- https://zenodo.org/records/18510025 (corroboration)
- https://scitechdaily.com/the-internet-just-named-a-brand-new-deep-sea-creature-found-nearly-3-miles-deep/ (corroboration)
- https://gizmodo.com/new-deep-sea-mollusk-has-an-iron-tongue-and-hitchhiking-worms-that-eat-its-poo-2000719955 (corroboration)