Monday, December 27, 2010

Fans of Awsomeness Observe the Vampire Squid


From the Wikipedia entry on Vampire Squid:
The Vampire Squid is almost entirely covered in light-producing organs called photophores. The animal has great control over the organs, 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 modulated. 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, but are absent from the underside of the caped arms. Two larger white areas on top of the head were initially believed to also be photophores, but have turned out to be photoreceptors...

Like many deep-sea cephalopods, Vampire Squid lack ink sacs. If threatened, instead of ink, a sticky cloud of bioluminescent mucus containing innumerable orbs of blue light is ejected from the arm tips. This luminous barrage, which may last nearly 10 minutes, is presumably meant to daze would-be predators and allow the Vampire Squid to disappear into the blackness without the need to swim far. The display is made only if the animal is very agitated; regenerating the mucus is costly from a metabolic point of view.
They spit glowing orbs of blue light when attacked. Try to tell me you're not jealous of that superpower. That's pretty darned awesome. There's actually quite a bit more awesomeness in the article I linked to, but that was my favorite fact about the Vampire Squid.
Vampyroteuthis in low light glowing

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