The vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis, lit. "vampire squid from Hell") is a small, deep-sea cephalopod found throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world. Unique retractile sensory filaments justify the vampire squid's placement in its own order: Vampyromorphida (formerly Vampyromorpha), which shares similarities with both squid and octopus. As a phylogenetic relict it is the only known surviving member of its order, first described and originally classified as an octopus in 1903 by German teuthologist Carl Chun, but later assigned to a new order together with several extinct taxa.
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Famous quotes containing the words vampire and/or squid:
“I am the wound and the knife!
I am the slap and the cheek!
I am the limbs and the rack,
And the victim and the executioner!
I am the vampire of my own heart.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“air or vacuum, snow or shale, squid or wolf, rose or lichen,
each is accepted into as much light as it will take,”
—Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926)