As I said above, eating dead animals isn’t vegetarianism. I’ve also never heard of non-human animals being properly described as vegetarians, as I believe the scientific community typically uses terms like herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, detritovore, etc. when describing the feeding habits of animals. In the human context, it’s pretty clear that eating dead animals is not vegetarian. From the article you link to, the diet of vampire squid “includes bits of algae, dead animals, poo and bacteria from the ocean above.” Unless there’s a scientific definition of vegetarianism that includes eating dead animals, there’s both factual and terminological misrepresentation occurring here.
I realise that the Deep Sea News piece you’re linking to also makes the mistake of calling them vegetarian, but I don’t see how their bad reporting could possibly justify replicating it here.
