The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has released this video of the vampire squid to emphasize a report that raises a red flag about the earth’s ocean.

 

The Vampyroteuthis infernalis is a type of a living fossil, meaning that it is seen very little change since it first appeared, before dinosaurs about 300 million years ago.

 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's Doctor Bruce Roberson who authored the report published in Conservation Biology narrates the institute's video.

 

Vampyroteuthis has very large eyes because it lives about half a mile deep in the ocean where the light is very dim. We took these pictures from a deep-diving robotic submarine. And you can see the reflection of our lights in that beautiful blue eye.

 

The vampire squid has 8 long arms and a long curly strand that serves as a sensory filament. It has a unique ability to react when it's startled. It can curl its web and arms around the rest of its body, turning sort of inside out. This change of appearance may help it avoid being attacked by predators.

 

These cephalopods, (they're technically not squids), live in the deep ocean with millions of other species, some of which are little known and on which little study has been done.

 

Roberson says human activities threaten all of these.

 

"They're threatened by ocean warming, decrease in oxygen, pollution, over-fishing, industrialization and dozens of other changes taking place in the deep. We have a responsibility to learn all we can about these amazing animals and to protect them from the greatest danger to life in the deep, the human species."

 

Roberson's focus is on the ocean's deep pelagic zone, which extends down from about 330 feet below the surface to just above the deep sea floor up to 6 miles below the surface.

 

While the sea floors had significant study, he points out little exploration has been done on this water above the deep floor. This zone is home to species eaten by fish that humans eat, such as tuna and salmon. Many whales, turtles and giant squids also rely on the zone for their food. Even though all of this is out of sight, any upset in the balance here can ultimately have a devastating effect on what humans have come to expect from the oceans, a place that provides food for millions of people.