Beneath half a mile of crushing ocean darkness drifts a creature so surreal it seems born from nightmare. Draped in a shadowy cloak of webbed skin and trailing eight tentacles tipped with faint, ghostly lights, it moves silently through the abyss. This is the vampire squid — named Vampyroteuthis sp., Latin for “vampire squid from hell.” But don’t let the name fool you. Despite sounding like a bloodthirsty monster, this deep-sea dweller is surprisingly harmless.
Instead of hunting or attacking prey, the vampire squid feeds in a far gentler way: it extends two long, sticky filaments that capture drifting organic particles — what marine scientists call “marine snow.” These tiny remnants of dead plankton and debris provide its steady, humble diet. So, while its title sounds menacing enough to rival any deep-sea predator, the vampire squid turns out to be one of the ocean’s most peaceful residents.
But here’s where it gets even more fascinating — and maybe a little controversial. The vampire squid isn’t really a squid at all. Biologists have found that it belongs to the same evolutionary branch as octopuses, known as Octopodiformes. True squids, on the other hand, belong to a different lineage called Decapodiformes. In other words, this so-called “vampire squid” is more closely related to an octopus than the name implies — a detail that still surprises even seasoned marine biologists.
To understand how this strange mix of squid-like and octopus-like traits came to be, scientists turned to genetics. Dr. Oleg Simakov, co-author of a groundbreaking study on cephalopod evolution published in iScience, explains that one major mystery has long puzzled researchers: “Which body plan came first — the squid’s or the octopus’s?” The answer lay hidden deep within the vampire squid’s DNA.
By sequencing its entire genome — the complete set of its genetic instructions — researchers uncovered something astonishing. The vampire squid’s genome is enormous, roughly four times larger than that of humans, and it holds striking structural similarities to the genomes of true squids. That’s especially intriguing, given that the vampire squid genetically aligns with octopuses. What does that mean? It suggests that the shared ancestor of both squids and octopuses, which lived some 300 million years ago (long before the first dinosaurs appeared), was likely more similar to squids than previously believed.
And this is the part most people miss: modern octopuses have evolved in bizarre and unexpected ways since splitting from their vampire squid relatives. Their evolutionary leap didn’t primarily involve creating new genes — it was powered by dramatic rearrangements within their existing DNA. Large chunks of their genomes fused, shifted positions, and reorganized entirely, reshaping their biology in ways that defy simple evolutionary models. This kind of internal reshuffling, rather than gene invention, seems to have driven their transformation into the intelligent, color-shifting creatures we know today.
In a sense, the vampire squid guards more than just the secrets of the deep. Its genetic code preserves the blueprint of ancient cephalopod evolution — a living time capsule from 300 million years ago. Every flicker of its glowing tentacles carries echoes of an ancient ancestor that shaped two of the ocean’s most extraordinary lineages.
A creature so elusive that it rarely meets human eyes has ended up rewriting our understanding of life beneath the sea. Does that make the vampire squid one of nature’s greatest impostors — or its most misunderstood marvel? What do you think: should it still bear the chilling title of “vampire squid from hell,” or does it deserve a gentler, more accurate name? Share your thoughts — this deep-sea debate is far from over.
