Indie Squid Kid

Vampire Squid by Wildlife Artists, Inc, originally uploaded by Cryptonaut.

Here we have another excellent toy from Wildlife Artists. It was produced in 1999, and, to my knowledge, it is the only plush reproduction of Vampyroteuthis infernalis ever made.

This little guy is 7″ tall/long, and its arms also span about 7″ across. The detail on this toy is fantastic! Not only is the color dead on (I love the eerie pale blue eyes!), but there are also a number of lighter spots on the mantle to represent the animal’s photophores. If you flip it over, its arms are lined with little dark marks to indicate the cirri, and it has a dark spot for the mouth/beak.

Like the plush cuttlefish (also by Wildlife Artists) featured earlier this week, I got this at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in 2001. That year they had a cool special exhibit about life in the abyssal ocean, and the gift shop was full of cephalopod-y goodness.

Wildlife Artists, Inc is a toy company dedicated to making realistic plush animals. This cuddly cuttlefish is about 8″ long and was produced in 1999. If I recall correctly, I picked this up from the NC Museum of Natural Sciences gift shop sometime in 2001.

The tag doesn’t indicate which species it is meant to be, but based on the brown and yellow coloration, I would tentatively guess Sepia officinalis, the Common Cuttlefish. The Common Cuttlefish (also known as the European Cuttlefish) is found in the Mediterranean, Baltic and North Seas, and it typically reaches a maximum mantle length of about 45 cm—about twice a big as this particular toy.

I know that Wildlife Artists makes at least one other toy cephalopod (What could it be? Stay tuned to find out!), but I don’t know if there are others. You need a Customer Account to access their online product catalog, but, unfortunately, I can’t find any information on their website how to sign up for such an account.