With their blood-red skin, white snapping beak and hooks arranged along their eight arms, the vampire squid is a spine-chilling apparition of the deep. Their scientific name, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, doesn’t help matters – the vampire squid from hell. But it’s a highly misleading name. For one thing, they aren’t actually squid, but distant relatives of octopuses and squid, and the only living members of their family, the Vampyroteuthidae. And they’re not bloodsucking beasts from the underworld. They’re actually quite gentle and small – at most, their bodies grow to 30cm, roughly the size of a rugby ball.