Nature is Freaky

[theorangemonkey]

(I was posting about this on twitter earlier today. Sorry to anyone bored by the double posting).

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: The Vampire Squid.



Some interesting facts about the vampire squid (taken from its wikipedia page):

• Its body is covered entirely in light-producing organs that are capable of producing disorienting flashes of light for fractions of a second to several minutes in duration.
• It can survive at depths of up to 900 metres; at this depth, oxygen levels are at only 3% of surface oxygen saturation
• If threatened, instead of ink, a sticky cloud of bioluminescent mucus containing innumerable orbs of blue light is ejected from the arm tips.
• Reproduction occurs when the male squid hydraulically injects a satchel of sperm into the female
• Newly-born vampire squid are completely transparent.

It's stuff like this that makes writing fiction difficult in some ways, because no matter what weird, bizarre stuff you come up with, there's something out there in the real world that's even weirder.