But despite its terrifying name and appearance, it’s not a vampire. It doesn’t suck blood. It doesn’t have a “blood funnel” vampire squids eat mostly “marine snow” — a mixture of dead bodies, poop, and snot. The dead bodies are the remains of microscopic algae and animals that live in the waters farther up in the ocean, but sink down into the depths after they die. The poop consists of fecal pellets from small, shrimp-like animals such as copepods or krill.
The snot is mostly debris from gelatinous animals called larvaceans, which filter and consume marine snow using mucus nets. they use their filaments like mobile spider webs. They extend these into the surrounding water to ensnare particles of food falling from above. The filaments are covered in tiny hairs, probably for catching these particles. They also have neurons that connect to a particularly large part of the creature’s brain, presumably so it can sense what’s stuck to its fishing lines.
When the time is right, it retracts the filaments, transfers the food to its other arms, and coats them in mucus secreted from its arm tips. It then conveys these delicious balls of mucus-bound detritus into its mouth, possibly with the help of the spines within its cloak. This strategy is very different to that of other cephalopods, most of which are active hunters that attack and kill their food. Vampire squids are definitely not that, This strategy is very different to that of other cephalopods, most of which are active hunters that attack and kill their food.
Vampire squids are definitely not that, as Hoving and Robison confirmed by checking the stomachs of captured specimens. They found eggs, algae, pellets of faeces, bits of jelly, crustacean body parts—antennae, eyes, some shells, whole copeopods—and flesh from another deep-sea squid. In both kind and quantity, these remnants don’t reflect the diet of a hunter. Instead, Hoving and Robison think that the vampire squid is mainly a ‘detritivore’ – a rubbish-eater.
