Vampire squids are carnivores which feed on shrimp, copepods and cnidarians. Their mass related metabolic rate is considerably low since they rely less on their locomotion while capturing preys or while escaping from predators. They use sensory filaments and organs which produce light which are located at the tip of their arms in order to locate a prey or a predator. It makes use of 1 filament at a time in order to locate its prey and swims around it in circles in order to catch it.

These squids can live by feeding on small crustaceans found in the deep sea. Since they control their metabolism which is not heavily relied upon, they do not need too much of food. When the need is felt, they get plenty. They are not choosy about their food and do not need substantial amounts either.

The vampire squid can survive with bare minimum oxygen levels which explain the reason they spend their entire lives in the ocean depths. Survival in these depths depends on their adaptations like blue blood which enables faster transfer of oxygen, their body metabolism being slow, weak muscles and sensitive eyes to spot the prey in dark waters. The squids can not see well in the upper surface of water especially above their head due to the intensity of light. They overcome this by generating a blue light in order to spot the prey. Their eyes are very large in comparison to the size of their body. These enable good vision in the dark depths. The octopus ejects a bluish color fluid but the squid does not have any ink sac. Instead, a blue sticky cloud gets ejected from its arm tips which continue to glow for approximately 10 mins which requires lot of energy expulsion.

The lifecycle of squids is complex. Young squids have a pair of fins while in middle age they have 2 pairs. On getting older it gets reduced back to one pair. The fins become efficient with the growing age and the additional pair of fins is located on its head. The fins change their direction, become smaller, become efficient, and also save energy.

The vastness of the ocean beds makes finding a partner difficult for squids. Once the male inseminates the female, the discretion of timing to use them for fertilization of eggs rests with the female. The eggs take 400 days of care for hatching from the female after which the female dies. The baby squids resemble their adults and are approximately 8mm long.

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MarineBio: Vampire Squids
http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=179