The elusive ' vampire squid from hell ' has just yielded the largest cephalopod genome ever sequenced, a monster clocking in at more than 11 billion base pairs – more than twice as large as the biggest squid genomes. Hidden in its mix of A, T, G, and C was a deep evolutionary story. Despite not being an actual squid, Vampyroteuthis infernalis has preserved a surprisingly squid-like chromosomal architecture – a layout shared long ago with the ancestor of modern octopuses and squids. The vampire