(Vampyroteuthis infernalis)
Photo by MrHyde
Since Marilyn has been excited by the newest movie installment of the “Twilight” series, “Eclipse” I thought I would profile this guy. I never heard of this animal until it came up randomly in a search I was doing on sea creatures. Literately, the scientific name of this cephalopod translates to “Vampire Squid from Hell”. It has its own order of classification called Vampyromorphida, and is similar to both octopuses and squid. They measure 4- 6 inches,have 8 arms like an octopus and 2 retractile tentacles, like cuttlefish. The coloring is black or sometimes a pale red with large eyes that can be red or blue. Not much information is known about the diet, but they do eat small crustaceans and other invertebrates. But, what makes this animal so cool besides its name is that it is bioluminescent . That means it can produce lights underwater with the chemicals in their bodies. The squid has the ability to use this for escape by diminishing the amount of light it produces to give its predator an illusion of becoming smaller, tricking it to appear it is swimming away.
Neat cephalopod.
I Googled it and saw many other images, there’s even a Vampyroteuthis Infernalis Tee Shirt available!
I need a vampire squid t-shirt
For someone like myself, who isn’t fond of bloodsucking creatures, it’s odd that I like Twilight so much! Maybe I can justify because I was for Team Jacob (I do love wolves, you know!)
I was shocked when you said this sea creature is 4-6 inches long… it looks much bigger in the picture!