Nature & Environment

Vampire 'Squid from Hell' revealed

By T.K. Randall
September 27, 2012 ·  26 comments

Image Credit: Carl Chun (1911) The vampiric 'Squid from Hell' is a strange combination of squid and octopus and is so unusual that it is the only species in its taxonomy category. Specimens are typically 13cm in length and live in warm oceans at depths of between 2000-3000ft. The squid is capable of using dark-blue bioluminescence to help conceal itself from predators and sports a set of 1 inch eyes to help detect movement.

Believed to feed exclusively on the corpses of dead sea creatures, the squid's most unusual feature is its bizarre umbrella-like mouth which opens up to reveal a set of octopus-like arms complete with suckers and finger-like spines. It even possesses a second set of arms that can reach out much further than the length of the creature before retracting them within neat little pockets inside the webbing of its mouth.[!gad]The vampiric 'Squid from Hell' is a strange combination of squid and octopus and is so unusual that it is the only species in its taxonomy category. Specimens are typically 13cm in length and live in warm oceans at depths of between 2000-3000ft. The squid is capable of using dark-blue bioluminescence to help conceal itself from predators and sports a set of 1 inch eyes to help detect movement.

Believed to feed exclusively on the corpses of dead sea creatures, the squid's most unusual feature is its bizarre umbrella-like mouth which opens up to reveal a set of octopus-like arms complete with suckers and finger-like spines. It even possesses a second set of arms that can reach out much further than the length of the creature before retracting them within neat little pockets inside the webbing of its mouth.

Source: Cosmos Magazine | Comments (26)

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