Swift and mysterious, vampire squid are an icon of life in the deep midwater.

It’s easy to imagine the vampire squid as a nightmarish predator. It lurks in the eternal midnight of the deep sea, has a dark red body, huge blue eyes, and a cloak-like web that stretches between its eight arms. When threatened, it turns inside out, exposing rows of wicked-looking “cirri.” Even its scientific name, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, means “vampire squid from hell.”

In reality, the vampire squid is a soft-bodied, passive creature, about the size, shape, and color of a football. A “living fossil,” it inhabits the deep waters of all the world’s ocean basins at depths where there is almost no oxygen, but also relatively few predators.