Snailopi (scientific name Cephaloctopi Malleatus) are animavorous man-sized nautiluses found in the arid deserts and salt flats of Sector Prime desert and temperate planets. When hungry their feeding tentacles emerge from their cone to entangle small creatures. They then absorb their prey's life force by emitting a weak osmotic field.
Snailopi have four senses; they can taste and touch with their tentacles, hear through vibrations in their cones, and see through sensory nodules along the side of its body; but they cannot smell. Snailopi can apparently also sense anima, or life force, within a surprisingly large radius of fifty meters or more.
Snailopi are anything but quick. It may take several minutes for them to get close enough to attack their prey. They does so by slowly extending its feeding tentacles towards an injured or sleeping lifeform while undulating them slowly and provocatively. Upon contact, however, a snailopus's pseudopods begin to flail wildly, quickly confusing and entangling the unfortunate victim. It then emits a visible osmotic nimbus (perhaps from the gemlike nodule located deep within its rubbery body) which drains the creature's life essences, leaving a lifeless carcass behind.
Solitary creatures, they do not mate. Every other year the tip of a Snailopus's shell cone breaks off and within is a tiny snailopus infant already thirsty for life. They grow up to one point five meters in height, live for ten to twenty years, and are preyed upon by Crab Monsters.