Q 01/05

Instead of blood, what sinking deep-sea material makes up most of a vampire squid's diet?

A) Whale carcasses

B) Marine snow

C) Drifting kelp

D) Coral polyps

Answer · why

B) Marine snow

Marine snow is a drizzle of dead plankton, droppings and slime from the waters above. No other living cephalopod is known to rely on it instead of cat...

Q 02/05

Despite the squid in its name, which animals are the vampire squid's closest living relatives?

A) Cuttlefish

B) Nautiluses

C) Octopuses

D) Sea slugs

Answer · why

C) Octopuses

Octopuses are its nearest kin, though the vampire squid is the only living member of an order of its own.

Q 03/05

Vampyroteuthis infernalis, the vampire squid's scientific name, translates as a vampire squid from where?

A) Night

B) Space

C) Limbo

D) Hell

Answer · why

D) Hell

Hell it is: infernalis is Latin for "of hell", a fierce label for a gentle drifter about a foot long.

Q 04/05

Measured against the size of its body, which feature of the vampire squid is the largest in the animal kingdom?

A) Eyes

B) Brain

C) Beak

D) Gills

Answer · why

A) Eyes

Eyes an inch across sit on a six-inch animal, about what a full-grown dog has, the better to catch faint glimmers in the dark.

Q 05/05

Which Wall Street bank did journalist Matt Taibbi brand a vampire squid in a 2009 magazine article?

A) Lehman Brothers

B) Goldman Sachs

C) Morgan Stanley

D) Bear Stearns

Answer · why

B) Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs got the label in Rolling Stone, in a piece on the firm's part in the 2008 financial crisis, and the nickname stuck.