Vampire squid
Depth: 900 m · Twilight Zone
The vampire squid sounds scary but is completely gentle. When threatened it pulls its dark webbed arms over itself like a cloak, showing the spiny inside. It eats marine snow, the bits and pieces that drift down from above.
For scientists
Vampyroteuthis infernalis lives in the low-oxygen midwater layer and gets by on remarkably little oxygen, because its blue blood binds what little there is especially well. Instead of hunting it catches sinking detritus with two long sticky filaments and wipes it off with its arms. When disturbed it releases not ink but a cloud of glowing mucus that confuses an attacker.
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