page_title: Vampire squid
section_title: Physical description
hierarchical_section_title: Vampire squid / Physical description
caption_attribution_description: English: A Vampire Squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis) drawn by Carl Chun, 1911. Polski: Vampyroteuthis infernalis Galego: Un polbo vampiro
context_page_description: The Vampire squid is a small, deep-sea cephalopod. It can be found throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world.
  It has special filaments it can retract; because of this, it has been placed in its own order: Vampyromorphida. It is similar to both squid and octopus. It is the only surviving member of its order. It was first described and mistakenly identified as an octopus in 1903.
context_section_description: The vampire squid can grow to about 30 cm (1 foot) in total length. It is no threat to humans. Its 15 cm (6 inch) gelatinous body varies in color between velvety jet-black and pale reddish, depending on location and lighting conditions. A webbing of skin connects its eight arms, each lined with rows of fleshy spines or cirri. The inside of this "cloak" is black. Only the distal half (farthest from the body) of the arms have suckers. Its limpid, globular eyes—which appear red or blue, also depending on lighting—are proportionately the largest in the animal kingdom at 2.5 cm (1 inch) in diameter.
  Mature adults have a pair of ear-like fins. These fins stand out from the lateral sides of the mantle. They serve as the adult's primary means of propulsion (moving around): Vampire Squid are said to "fly" through the water by way of flapping their fins. Their powerful beak-like jaws are as white as ivory. Within the webbing are two pouches. These pouches hide the tactile velar filaments. The filaments are analogous to a true squid's tentacles, extending well past the arms, however, they are a different arm pair than the squid's tentacles. Instead, the filaments are the same pair that were lost by the ancestral octopuses.
  The Vampire Squid is covered entirely in light-producing organs called photophores. The animal has great control over the organs. It is capable of producing disorienting flashes of light for fractions of a second to several minutes in duration. The intensity and size of the photophores can also be varied. Appearing as small white discs, the photophores are larger and more complex at the tips of the arms and at the base of the two fins. They are absent from the underside of the caped arms. Two larger white areas on top of the head were initially believed to be photophores too, but have turned out to be photoreceptors.
  The chromatophores (pigment organs) common to most cephalopods are poorly developed in Vampire Squid. While this means the animal is not capable of changing its skin colour in the dramatic fashion of shallow-dwelling cephalopods, such trickery is not needed at the pitch black depths in which it lives.
caption: Vampyroteuthis infernalis
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