Vampire squid!

Thursday 27 January 3266

 Wow, today was a great day!

Our ROV saw some really cool things. And I can't wait to show you all! Unfortunately, the "deep silence" clause is keeping us all kinda quiet right now (on our social media 'n stuff). Oh no! I can't tell you everything I saw. But I do have some mini-permissions to tell you some mini-things (without, unfortunately, showing them to you).

For example, I can tell you that we spotted a vampire squid. Have you ever heard of one? I hope so, because it's a truly beautiful, absurdly beautiful animal.

It's a squid (no, wait, it's not exactly a squid, but at least it's a cephalopod!), but not a vampire, in the sense that it doesn't drink blood... the reason it's called that is to be found in its appearance (absurdly beautiful): it has a deep red body (blood red, you could say), which seems to be made of silk (and just like silk, it's iridescent. Yes, of course I know vampires aren't normally silky, I realize that...) what vampire squids have in common with vampires are their "teeth." I mean, no, not teeth, but spines. I mean, um... vampire squids are harmless. But it looks like they have teeth/spines (they're actually cirri!), because they're inside their "umbrella" made up of tentacles and the flaps of skin that go between them.

Basically, when seen from above, vampire squids are adorable little creatures: red, with a pair of fins, that pop out of their heads (a bit like the more famous dumbo octopuses! Or like flapjack octopuses, which are my favorites!).

I'm wondering if I should write a whole page dedicated to vampire squids, because they deserve it, they really deserve it... maybe even a little pixel art! You could put some stickers on your pages too! Some... little adoptables? Like the ones you put in forum signatures. Something cute, saying "I adopted the Vampire Squid" and a link to the page that explains all the cool things about this animal.

Woah. What a great idea. I think I'll make some "scientific adoptables" for all my favorite creatures, so you can put them on your personal websites or in your forum signatures! That'll be really cool.

But back to the vampire squid and its spine-like teeth that aren't really teeth: from above, they look like "normal" cephalopods, but when they feel threatened, they turn around, spread their tentacles, and... bam! They look like they're become a huge mouth overflowing with monstrous, pale teeth, like those of a lamprey, but worse, like the menacing whirlpool of Charybdis (I think I should tell you about Charybdis, it's a really cool story!).

In addition to having fake teeth that transform it into monstrous living jaws, the vampire squid also has two scary, glowing fake eyes, and can exude bioluminescent mucus from the tips of its arms (think Mega-Malamar, if you're a Pokémon fan! It does something similar!).

In reality, as I told you, vampire squids aren't dangerous at all: they feed on zooplankton, or tiny animals, and sometimes even... poop... yes, especially the younger ones, they eat the fecal pellets that come from animals that live in shallower layers of the water, so all the "coolness" of the vampire squids is just for show.

And I didn't tell you the funniest thing! But this isn't the vampire squid's fault for trying to look edgy; it's the fault of the people who gave it its scientific name: Vampyroteuthis infernalis, which actually means "vampire squid from hell." Wow. That's a lot for a colorful octopus that eats shrimp and poop!

Anyway, if you're curious to see what one of these creatures looks like, I can't show you what we recorded, but I can show you some old Nautilus footage, where you can admire the squishy, ​​silky skin of this adorable animal, completely different from what you'd expect when you hear the words "vampire squid from hell":

Well, now Seraphin's calling me, and we're about to have a midnight spaghetti dinner. Bah-bye from your favorite marine biologist!