The Vampire Squid Eats Snow
Real animals that sound made up. Every claim in these episodes is checked against published science or museum sources.
The story
(12) Its scientific name means "vampire squid from hell." And it eats snow. (19) Meet the vampire squid: dark red, huge eyes, about a foot long, drifting two thousand feet down or deeper. (22) But it's no vampire, and it's not even a squid. Scientists call it a living fossil, the last of an ancient group.
(17) Its food is marine snow: a slow flurry of dead plankton, poop, and slime sinking from above. (26) It lets out a sticky thread up to eight times its body length, like a fishing line, then wraps its catch into a slimy little dumpling. (18) Spooked? It flips its webbed arms up over itself like a cloak, and its arm tips glow blue.
(18) What really happened? The vampire squid from hell doesn't want your blood. It's a gentle drifter catching snow.