Vampire Squid, you disappoint me.

[DavidBrown]

Unlike we all hoped, it appears that vampire squid do not catch fish and suck the blood out of them.

They eat organic debris falling into the ocean depths that some call "marine snow".

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/science/when-it-needs-to-feast-vampire-squid-is-a-softy.html?_r=0

They are still hyper-cool looking.

 

[callorhinus]

They eat organic debris falling into the ocean depths that some call "marine snow".

Marine snow? Beautiful name. If I am not confused we call it in Russian
"rain of corpses"

They are still hyper-cool looking.

Exactly!

 

[FBBird]

Vampire Squid

I still don't want to find one in my shoe

 

[Chlidonias]

Marine snow? Beautiful name. If I am not confused we call it in Russian
"rain of corpses"

I much prefer the Russian name!!

 

[callorhinus]

I much prefer the Russian name!!

You are welcome!

By the way, why this species is "squid"? Man who described it first (his pictures are so... infernal! Classic: Vampyroteuthis infernalis) classified it as an octopus. Now this species is assigned to a monotypic order, but not closer to squids that to octopuses as I know.

 

[Chlidonias]

my guess would be that "vampire squid" just sound so much better than "vampire octopus". Interestingly enough, Vampyroteuthis translates as "vampire squid" but the describer (Carl Chun, in 1903) did consider it to be an octopus.

 

[snowleopard]

"Vampire squid from hell" = 4 glorious words narrated by David Attenborough in the Planet Earth Series. Scary!