[Ranger1]

The vampire squid can turn itself "inside out" to avoid predators. Vampyroteuthis infernalis is a type of living fossil, meaning that it has seen very little change since it first appeared, before dinosaurs, about 300 million years ago. The vampire squid has 8 long arms, and a long curly strand that serves as a sensory filament. It has very large eyes, because it lives about a half a mile deep in the ocean, where the light is very dim. It has a unique ability to react when it is startled. It can curl its web and arms around the rest of its body—turning sort of ‘inside out.’ This change in appearance may help it avoid being attacked by predators.

These cephalopods --they’re technically not squids-- live in the deep ocean with millions of other species, some of which are little-known and on which little study has been done. They are threatened by ocean warming, decreasing oxygen, pollution, overfishing, industrialization and dozens of other changes taking place in the deep. We have a responsibility to learn all we can about these amazing animals and to protect them from the greatest danger to life in the deep: the human species.

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