{"id":164930,"date":"2025-11-28T21:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T21:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/164930\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T21:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T21:47:10","slug":"scientists-sequence-genome-of-vampire-squid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/164930\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Sequence Genome of Vampire Squid"},"content":{"rendered":"

The genome of the vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis sp.)<\/a> is one of the largest animal genomes, exceeding 10 billion base pairs.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis sp.) is one of the most enigmatic animals of the deep sea. Image credit: Steven Haddock \/ MBARI.<\/p>\n

A \u2018living fossil,\u2019 the vampire squid inhabits<\/a> the deep waters of all the world\u2019s ocean basins at depths from 500 to 3,000 m.<\/p>\n

The species is a soft-bodied, passive creature, about the size, shape, and color of a football.<\/p>\n

It has a dark red body, huge blue eyes, and a cloak-like web that stretches between its eight arms.<\/p>\n

When threatened, the squid turns inside out, exposing rows of wicked-looking \u2018cirri.\u2019<\/p>\n

While other squid reproduce all at once late in their lives, the vampire squid shows evidence of multiple reproductive cycles.<\/p>\n

\u201cModern cephalopods (coleoids) \u2014 including squids, octopuses, and cuttlefish \u2014 split more than 300 million years ago into two major lineages: the ten-armed Decapodiformes (squids and cuttlefish) and the eight-armed Octopodiformes (octopuses and the vampire squid),\u201d said Shimane University biologist Masa-aki Yoshida and colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite its name, the vampire squid has eight arms like an octopus but shares key genomic features with squids and cuttlefish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt occupies<\/a> an intermediate position between these two lineages \u2014 a connection that its genome reveals for the first time at the chromosomal level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough it belongs to the octopus lineage, it retains elements of a more ancestral, squid-like chromosomal organization, providing new insight into early cephalopod evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

In new research, the authors sequenced the genome of the vampire squid from an individual collected in the West Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt over 11 billion base pairs, the vampire squid genome is roughly four times larger than the human genome, making it the largest cephalopod genome ever analyzed,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite this size, its chromosomes show a surprisingly conserved structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of this, Vampyroteuthis is considered a \u2018genomic living fossil\u2019 \u2014 a modern representative of an ancient lineage that preserves key features of its evolutionary past.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers found that it has preserved parts of a decapodiform-like karyotype while modern octopuses underwent extensive chromosomal fusions and rearrangements during evolution.<\/p>\n

This conserved genomic architecture provides new clues to how cephalopod lineages diverged.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vampire squid sits right at the interface between octopuses and squids,\u201d said Dr. Oleg Simakov, a researcher at the University of Vienna.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts genome reveals deep evolutionary secrets on how two strikingly different lineages could emerge from a shared ancestor.\u201d<\/p>\n

By comparing the vampire squid with other sequenced species, including the pelagic octopus Argonauta hians<\/a>, the scientists were able to trace the direction of chromosomal changes over evolutionary time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe genome sequence of Argonauta hians (paper nautilus), a \u2018weird\u2019 pelagic octopus whose females secondarily obtained a shell-like calcified structure, was also presented for the first time in our study,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe analysis suggests that early coleoids had a squid-like chromosomal organization, which later fused and compacted into the modern octopus genome \u2014 a process known as fusion-with-mixing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese irreversible rearrangements likely drove key morphological innovations such as the specialization of arms and the loss of external shells.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough it is classified as an octopus, the vampire squid retains a genetic heritage that predates both lineages,\u201d added Dr. Emese T\u00f3th, a researcher at the University of Vienna.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us a direct look into the earliest stages of cephalopod evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur study provides the clearest genetic evidence yet that the common ancestor of octopuses and squids was more squid-like than previously thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt highlights that large-scale chromosomal reorganization, rather than the emergence of new genes, was the main driver behind the remarkable diversity of modern cephalopods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results<\/a> were published on November 21, 2025 in the journal iScience.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Masa-aki Yoshida et al. 2025. Giant genome of the vampire squid reveals the derived state of modern octopod karyotypes. iScience 28 (11): 113832; doi: 10.1016\/j.isci.2025.113832<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The genome of the vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis sp.) is one of the largest animal genomes, exceeding 10 billion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[91768,91769,91770,619,85,256,3303,61,60,91771,14994,91772,82,91773,91774,91775,91776],"class_list":{"0":"post-164930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-argonauta","9":"tag-argonauta-hians","10":"tag-cephalopod","11":"tag-dna","12":"tag-evolution","13":"tag-gene","14":"tag-genome","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-octopod","18":"tag-octopus","19":"tag-paper-nautilus","20":"tag-science","21":"tag-squid","22":"tag-vampire-squid","23":"tag-vampyroteuthis","24":"tag-vampyroteuthis-infernalis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}