Vampire squid a human's inner ear) and ammonium-rich gelatinous tissues closely matching the density of the surrounding seawater. Like many deep-sea cephalopods, the vampire squid lacks ink sacs. If disturbed, it will curl its arms up outwards and wrap them around its body, turning itself inside-out in a way, exposing spiny projections. If highly agitated, it may eject a sticky cloud of bioluminescent mucus containing innumerable orbs of blue light from the arm tips. This luminous barrage, which may last nearly 10 minutes, would presumably serve to daze would-be predators and allow the vampire squid to disappear into the blackness without the
Magnoteuthis microlucens by NELHA operations manager Jan War, a reference to the fact that the specimen had only eight arms, like an octopus, rather than the eight arms and two tentacles of most squid. An examination of the specimen conducted by Richard Young of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, however, concluded that it is was an unnamed species of the genus "Mastigoteuthis". The specimen was likely missing its tentacles due to them being torn off during capture. It was formally described in 2008 as "Mastigoteuthis microlucens". Magnoteuthis microlucens Magnoteuthis microlucens is a species of squid; the most common species of "Mastigoteuthis"