Sunday, November 18, 2007

Vampire Squid Videos:

A documentary by National Geographic on Vampyroteuthis infernalis:
Vampire Squid movement and photophore display (audio is in Japanese, refer to Behavioural section for descriptions):



(The english audio for this video can be heard here - http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q2o6t-0fU10 at 4:53, however embedding has been disabled)

Images of Vampire Squids:

This is the what the Vampire Squid from the original description of this species looked like. It was described as "a very small but terrible octopus, black as night, with ivory white jaws and blood red eyes". As you can see from the following images, this description could not be farther from the truth.


The terrible "Vampire Squid from Hell".


The massive eye of the Vampire Squid. Like other cephalopod eyes, the Vampire Squid's eyes are complex and highly evolved. The are not totally unlike our own eyes.

After detecting movement with its velar filaments, the Vampire Squid swings around and envelops its food. The Vampire Squid takes on such formidable prey as copepods, cnidarians, prawns and small fish.









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