I was appalled when I read this entry at Huffington Post, which seemed to say that the vampire squid might be endangered from human activity. Then I clicked on the original press release put out by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and found only that the science guys believe that there are changes going on in the depths of the ocean due to human activity (very plausible), but that they don’t know what’s being affected because there’s so little data. So this animal might be in danger of disappearing, but might not be.
Still, it’s nice to see the vampire squid (vampyroteuthis infernalis, which literally means “vampire squid from hell”) get some press. This bizarre creature is one of my favorite reminders that the biosphere throws up some seriously weird stuff sometimes. Click on the video screen below for your WTF moment of the day:
