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The animal on the cover of Understanding Computation is the bear paw clam (Hippopus hippopus). The bear paw clam, also known as the horse’s hoof clam because of its shape and the strawberry clam for its reddish color, is part of the giant clam subfamily Tridacnidae, which in turn is part of the family Cardiidae. The bear paw clam mostly lives in reefs in the Indo-Pacific area.

The bear paw clam has two identical and symmetrical hinged sections. It also has deep ridges and a distinctive red-white color pattern. It feeds on plankton in the surrounding area by staying in one location and filtering surrounding water using its siphons.

The cover image is from a loose plate, source unknown. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.