Latest Vampire Squid Stories

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Though the vampire squid was first discovered about 100 years ago, and a dozen scientific papers have been published, marine biologists have not been able to find out what the creature eats. A new study, led by the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), shows that unlike its relatives the octopus and squid, which eat live prey, the vampire squid uses two thread-like filaments to capture bits of organic debris that sink...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online A defensive strategy, never seen before, being used by a small species of deep-sea squid in which the animal counter-attacks a predator and then leaves the tips of its arms attached to the predator as a diversion has been observed by a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Rhode Island. When the foot-long octopus squid (Octopoteuthis deletron) found deep in the northeast Pacific Ocean "jettisons its arms" in self-defense,...