New research on fossils has revealed that a vampire-like ancient squid haunted Earth's oceans 165 million years ago. The study, published in June edition of the journal Papers in Palaeontology, says the creature had a bullet-shaped body with luminous organs, eight arms and sucker attachments. The discovery was made by scientists in France, who used modern imaging technique to analyse the previously discovered fossils. The ancient squid has been named Vampyrofugiens atramentum, which stands for the "fleeing vampire". The researchers said that these features have never been recorded before.
The newly-discovered species believed to have snatched live prey using it arms. It also had defensive features such as glow-in-the-dark organs, as mentioned in the study.
It was also found that Vampyrofugiens had an ink sac as a unique defence feature.
The combination of bioluminescence and ink is the first recorded in extinct coleoids.
"It was both predator and prey," study lead author Alison Rowe, a doctoral candidate at the Palaeontology Research Center in Paris (CR2P), told Live Science.
"It's (the two features) special because it's got a number of anatomical features that we've not seen to my knowledge in the fossil record," she added.
V atramentum could have used the luminous organs to communicate by creating light signals in the dark ocean and also mimic natural light from the surface to hide from predators, said the study.
This discovery will throw fresh light on the evolution of coleoid cephalopods, which include octopuses, squid and cuttlefish.
Ms Rowe and her team said in the study that V atramentum lived in the open ocean and likely ate fish, crustaceans and potentially smaller cephalopods, while it was likely prey to larger fish and larger cephalopods.
