10 ms·

The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

389 points by cratermoon 3y ago

brador 3y ago
It's fake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus
blamazon 3y ago
I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: > The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is an Internet hoax created in 1998 by a humor writer under the pseudonym Lyle Zapato. Since its creation, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus website has been commonly referenced in Internet literacy classes in schools and has been used in multiple studies demonstrating children's gullibility regarding online sources of information. [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus
- Planktonne 3y ago
  > others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment But then they wouldn't learn anything about reading critically.
- morelisp 3y ago
  Unfortunately the campaign was unsuccessful and octopus paxarboli went extinct not long after the page first was published, before internet access was common and before smartphones could easily take pictures of it etc. Just because there's minimal evidence of something from before the internet, on the internet, doesn't make it a hoax.
  - civilitty 3y ago
    Not to mention that 100% of all octopus fossils have been found on land. We have zero evidence of octopus fossils in the ocean.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Unfortunately the campaign was unsuccessful and octopus paxarboli went extinct not long after the page first was published, Largely, the campaign failed because of the joint US/Canadian invasion of the Republic of Cascadia based on (ironically, false) claims of Weapons of Media Deception (WMD) being deployed with imminent plans for use against North American civilian targets.
- oatmeal1 3y ago
  > I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: I believed it too. The thing is, this is something no one is really incentivized to lie about. If some website says "politician did X", then your lie detector turns on, because it's worth it for lots of websites to lie or mislead about that. It would be very hard to go through life questioning the veracity of every inconsequential bit of information that no one has an incentive to lie about. I don't think it demonstrates much that students believed it. And I especially don't think it means anything about gullibility about information found online. Almost certainly, if it were printed in a book, they'd be even more likely to believe it.
  - MattGaiser 3y ago
    Add in that the animal world is full of wacky creatures that don't fit heuristic models for plausibility. People thought the Platypus was a hoax was it was initially discovered. It is real.
    - mc32 3y ago
      Add the propensity to colloquially grant newly discovered things names that borrow from existing things: sea cow, catfish, etc. so why couldn’t there be something called a tree octopus?
      - MattGaiser 3y ago
        Today I learned that a tree crab is a thing. I knew a tree lobster was a thing. There is something that could plausibly be called a tree clam.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > Add the propensity to colloquially grant newly discovered things names that borrow from existing things: sea cow, catfish, etc. so why couldn’t there be something called a tree octopus? There could be. The name of the animal isn't what gives the lie away.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  It's revealing that a substantial part of that wikipedia article is about Internet literacy studies.
- tracerbulletx 3y ago
  The poster at the bottom kind of gives away the parody. Pretty fun though, I wish there was a tree octopus now.
- bantou_41 3y ago
  I think part of the purpose of sharing this website without saying anything about it might be to show that, in the age of the internet and AI, we don’t really verify information before consuming it. It’s not just children who are gullible. A lot of what we read on the internet is second hand information, facts with subjective interpretations, opinions, or straight up false information.
  - Hendrikto 3y ago
    > in the age of the internet and AI, we don’t really verify information before consuming it As if this had ever been different. I would even argue that, because it is simply much easier to do, people are more incentivized to fact-check imformation, than 100 years ago.
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
      I for one think it used to be very different. That is, there used to be some pretty universal, trusted sources of information. Encyclopedia Brittanica, for one simple example. And I'm not saying these sources never had errors or they didn't embed some of the societal biases in their reports, but they clearly had an institutional desire to report facts correctly, and pretty much nobody questioned that intent, regardless of political leanings. The ease with which anyone can publish anything on the Internet is a double-edged sword. It makes it more possible to challenge the status quo, but it also means that some crackpot can produce a slick video that, to many people, is just as valid as some well-researched documentary that at least attempts to be unbiased.
  - mikrotikker 3y ago
    Sorry but you gotta be a special kind of retarded to believe this. If you believe this you probably think Jan 6 was an "insurrection", chemtrails are "just contrails" and that we need to ban hydrogen dioxide.
- beej71 3y ago
  It was good! I got to the end thinking, "I don't know if I've been had or not." The WP article is a great read--recommend.
- freitzkriesler2 3y ago
  It's the Washington Oregon version of the Dropbear.
  - stephenr 3y ago
    Droptopus?
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Had it not been for your comment it would’ve definitely taken me longer to figure out, and I would’ve most likely made a fool out of myself by telling people about it. I was extremely susceptible to this story, because I absolutely love octopuses, and everything related to them. However I’m not an expert and it would not surprise me at all (given how surprising octopuses are generally) that there was a octopus group that could adapt to an extremely high humidity area, so it seems plausible! I like getting fooled like this occasionally cause it keeps you on your toes and shows you how vulnerable and easily fooled we all are.
  - jmckib 3y ago
    I immediately thought this looked too absurd to be real, but I wonder if my lack of octopus knowledge helped me out here. I know octopi are pretty smart, but I don’t think of them as being too surprising in their capabilities.
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago
  > has been used in multiple studies demonstrating children's gullibility And not to make everything about this, but in light of this, interpret various currently fashionable and harmful pseudoscientific ideologies being peddled in schools and backed by the force of the regime. Children are very gullible. That's one major reason why they need parents, to protect them from predation and to guide them toward the minimum of adulthood. Worse still when parents themselves buy into these ideologies.
- ortusdux 3y ago
  To be fair, tree octopuses sound about as outlandish as land crabs, which I still have trouble believing are real. https://arthropoda.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/coconut-crab.jpg https://arthropoda.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/coconut-crab....
  - UncleSlacky 3y ago
    Not to mention the land shark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Shark_(Saturday_Night_Live) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Shark_(Saturday_Night_Liv... and the prairie squid: https://subgenius.fandom.com/wiki/Prairie_squid https://subgenius.fandom.com/wiki/Prairie_squid
    - MarkMarine 3y ago
      And drop bears
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    I think this is a great point. It's easy to come back with a "hah, look how gullible you are" when someone believes hoaxes like this, but that ignores the reality that "truth is often stranger than fiction." I mean seriously, a coconut crab specifically evolved a special breathing apparatus to survive on land - why should that be any different from an octopus having "special adaptations" to keep it from getting desiccated when out of the water for extended periods? It's like when I used to read through Snopes feeds, and 9 times out of 10 I'd think "wow, that's so dumb, how could anyone believe that", and then the tenth time I'd think the same thing for a story that actually ended up being true.
- petre 3y ago
  I've always liked this one better: https://zapatopi.net/belgium/ https://zapatopi.net/belgium/ “Tourists, business travelers, and other visitors are allowed to "come" to the "country" in order to "witness" its "existence." In reality, these people are waylaid at the common borders of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg and taken to NWO branch facilities where they have false memories of vast sprout fields and chocolate factory tours implanted.”
- retrocryptid 3y ago
  Meh. You have a parochial opinion of facts.
- 01100011 3y ago
  It was obvious when the page mentioned rainforests, which are on the western flank of the Olympics, but had a map showing only the eastern flank.
- parentheses 3y ago
  I scanned it and thought. HN post. Must be legit. Good reminder to RTFx.
- tejohnso 3y ago
  Well I for one appreciate it. I was drawn in after a couple of paragraphs, and then started to doubt and figured I'd check the comments for exactly this kind of thing before I run off and tell my child about an amazing animal I just heard about. Thank you. After reading about parasites that turn ants into zombies to do their bidding, I'm pretty much all out of "that's just a nonsense story" when it comes to nature's variety. I'll be skeptical, but I tend not to outright dismiss immediately.
- greggsy 3y ago
  The article lists as bald eagles and Sasquatch as natural predators…
  - fourthark 3y ago
    That's when I finally caught on!
- pschastain 3y ago
  Reading the headline I thought it was going to be an article about the octopus tree: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/octopus-tree-of-oregon https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/octopus-tree-of-oregon
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  A little similar to Birds Aren't Real.
- RajT88 3y ago
  Another one like this, which you have to dive a bit deeper to find the give-aways: https://objectiveministries.org/ https://objectiveministries.org/ (But once you've gone down the rabbit hole, there are some spectacular give-aways)
- 1024core 3y ago
  I saw the photos of snow and immediately realized it was fake.
- andreskytt 3y ago
  Oh, but dear sir, you forgot about the AI!
- swsdsailor 3y ago
  Damn. I wanted to believe!
Modified3019 3y ago
http://www.lakemichiganwhales.com/ http://www.lakemichiganwhales.com/
yissp 3y ago
This is great, reminds me of a classic from my childhood, the house hippo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TijcoS8qHIE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TijcoS8qHIE
Borrible 3y ago
Early ancestors of the Squibbon.
krupan 3y ago
Terry Pratchett added these wonderful animals to the world in which his book Nation takes place (one of his very best books, if you ask me). He undoubtedly was inspired by this website
- cmehdy 3y ago
  Sir Pterry was inspired by just about everything, which in itself is an inspiration to always digest what this world throws at us and turn it into all sorts of fantastic things.
ComputerGuru 3y ago
I randomly come across a link to this every ten years or so. It is put together splendidly well. I must admit however that I’m a tad disappointed that the list of factors contributing to the critical endangerment of this wonderful specimen still has not been updated to include mention of the extinction of its once-primary source of nutrition, the harvest of the spaghetti tree [0]. Perhaps in ten more years this oversight will have been corrected! [0]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/that-time-the-bbc-fooled-its-audience-into-thinking-spaghetti-grew-on-trees/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/that-time-the-bbc-foo...
calibas 3y ago
> Although the tree octopus is not officially listed on the Endangered Species List, we feel that it should be added since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs. The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch.
fultonb 3y ago
It's always crazy running in to one hiking up there
woahitsraj 3y ago
Classic! I remember convincing friends and family members that this was real when I was young. There was something incredibly fun and powerful being a child and able to fool adults who would believe anything they read on the internet. It's amazing how websites like this inoculated myself and many other young people from obvious misinformation on the internet in a fun and mostly harmless way
tspike 3y ago
My uncles spent a summer working tours near Aspen in the 80s. They worked tirelessly to educate the tourist population about the dangers of the Rocky Mountain Alpine Shark.
aerodog 3y ago
I asked ChatGPT if octopuses exist in trees, and to my surprise, ChatGPT 'got it'
- chowells 3y ago
  Why is that a surprise? Every single text on the subject explains the joke eventually. It's the exact sort of high correlation GPT is good at finding.
wood_spirit 3y ago
The context of this showing up on HN made me kinda assumed it was a chatgpt generated thing. A quick google shows it seems to be a well known classic hoax from the late 90s. But there really are crabs and lobsters that live in trees and things, as do lots of type of mollusc (eg slugs and snails). So it isn’t completely silly. So it’s not like a tree octopus is any more ridiculous than the coconut crab? It seems there is no good way to know the truth anymore, as searching the internet might just find collaborating lies and conjecture…
- furyofantares 3y ago
  > The context of this showing up on HN made me kinda assumed it was a chatgpt generated thing. It's very likely OP discovered it through the link on this HN post that was at the top yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36739920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36739920
  - JayPalm 3y ago
    Yeah, this occurred to me too. Guess we'll likely be inundated with 90's websites for a few days.
    - furyofantares 3y ago
      I hope so
- CydeWeys 3y ago
  > So it’s not like a tree octopus is any more ridiculous than the coconut crab? It is a lot more ridiculous though because land crabs are a well known thing (e.g. hermit crabs) whereas land octopuses don't exist. Octopuses are very much a water-only type of organism. It just requires a little prior knowledge about the broad strokes of animalian orders.
  - wood_spirit 3y ago
    Octopuses are molluscs, and there are lots of land living molluscs, right?
wzy 3y ago
Reminds me of the endangered "Australian Drop bear".
bmmayer1 3y ago
Didn't know it was a hoax. This is the Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus
darkclouds 3y ago
Its a two hour drive from Microsoft headquarters, the perfect location to search for gullible Microsoft employees looking for this octopus, as they would become useful assets for the intelligence community. Think like a spook!
rootsudo 3y ago
I didn't believe it and was widely thinking it is fake, and then I come to the comments and there we are. First the scientific name, obscura just sold it out as fake - but as someone who lived in the area - it would've been much more obvious and probably involved in tons of actual campaigns and protests.
BMc2020 3y ago
Let's not forget the ice worms: Ice Worms and Their Habitats on North Cascade Glaciers https://glaciers.nichols.edu/iceworm/ https://glaciers.nichols.edu/iceworm/ and the Australian Drop Bear https://australian.museum/learn/animals/mammals/drop-bear/ https://australian.museum/learn/animals/mammals/drop-bear/
- corndoge 3y ago
  Devilish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_worm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_worm
- 6D794163636F756 3y ago
  Aren't iceworms real though?
  - carabiner 3y ago
    Ya if you spend time on Cascade glaciers you'll see them wiggling. Pretty common.
- worik 3y ago
  > and the Australian Drop Bear Urban legend I was told (In Auckland - not Australia) In the war the US army moved vast reserves into North Australia for quite obvious reasons. Tanks on exercises in the Australian desert got very hot, so naturally kept their hatches open whenever they could. Massed tanks on manoeuvres in the desert will from time to time run into trees. Koala spend 90% of their time asleep in trees. Completing the picture a tank blunders into a tree and koala are dislodged and rain down. Through open tank hatches. The "Great Australian Drop Bear" is a recently woken angry Koala in fight mode in a crowded tank.....
  - cperciva 3y ago
    See also kangaroos armed with stinger missiles: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shoot-me-kangaroo-down-sport/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shoot-me-kangaroo-down-spo...
easeout 3y ago
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tree-octopus/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tree-octopus/
Daunk 3y ago
I wasn't until I read that the sasquatch was its natural predator that I started to question things...
notorandit 3y ago
For a moment... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octop...
user6723 3y ago
They're out of the water now? Once they learn how to use fire we are all doomed, we're DONE. Sell all your stocks but HODL your BTC.
- hinkley 3y ago
  What if he’s got a pointed stick?
  - hackeraccount 3y ago
    Or a board with a nail in it.
brendev 3y ago
I used to teach a computer science class to elementary-middle school kids. I always did a week on internet literacy, and would open the lesson with a worksheet that included this fella, along with a number of other fake animals, and some that look fake, but aren't. Each kid was supposed to come up with a summary of what the animal was, where they live, what they eat, etc. It was a lot of fun, but I've got to say... Parents: please take some time to teach your kids how to critically evaluate information that they read online.
LanternLight83 3y ago
Somewhat relatedly, there's the marshmello farming mockumentery: https://youtu.be/yflTu150QZw https://youtu.be/yflTu150QZw
- rikroots 3y ago
  But marsh mallow plants are real! I grew up with them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althaea_officinalis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althaea_officinalis
yalogin 3y ago
Without the reference to the Sasquatch I wouldn’t have figured out this is made up. Well done
sparcpile 3y ago
There was a Discovery Channel special about future evolution that took this idea and ran with it. They had an idea of octopi being more land dwelling and becoming the dominant species.
chmod600 3y ago
I am not quite sure what tipped me off, but I suspected something was off in the first paragraph or two and went to Wikipedia. I think it just seemed out of place, like someone bringing up a topic in a forced way. Kind of “trying too hard”.
ortusdux 3y ago
Crazy link timing! I just got my mug in the mail last week: https://postimg.cc/gallery/YY7f3x3 https://postimg.cc/gallery/YY7f3x3
CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
Fetch me a sky hook, I need to capture a tree octopus!
pvaldes 3y ago
Yep. Inoculating the idea that science is something not to be trusted is a lot of hard work. Very funny, ha ha...
voz_ 3y ago
This kind of thing is malicious. It was maybe cute in the 90s/00s, but now? Too much fake news abound.
qwertox 3y ago
This makes me sad. I once saw my nephew looking at a dino book and I joined him, and for some reason he ended up telling me that they exist in some part of the world. Stupid me laughed at him and told him that they no longer exist, and this has haunted me for years. I say this, because there was a photo of blue teddy-octopi's legs hanging from a tree on the site, and I started imagining a dad telling his kid how this is something real, that he/she should watch for them to see if he/she can spot them occasionally. Hurts my heart, but the site is nice, like a cherished thought which someone wanted to keep alive.
- Planktonne 3y ago
  If you haven't already read it, you might like Terry Pratchett's Hogfather [1]. [1](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/583655-hogfather https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/583655-hogfather)
Stratoscope 3y ago
People often ask why the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus has such a successful ecological niche that alternates between the rainforest and under the water. The reason is that unlike humans and other land creatures, they are completely immune to the toxic effects of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO). In fact, they require regular immersion in it. This also explains why the octopuses don't migrate farther south. When on the land, they still require ongoing contact with DHMO, which on the Olympic Peninsula is found in abundance in the very air! https://dhmo.org/ https://dhmo.org/
booleandilemma 3y ago
That photo was so ridiculous but I badly wanted to believe it was real!
thyrsus 3y ago
I was completely taken in until the octopus hat. There's no way 1920s fashionistas go from feathers to a pile of brown turds on their heads. The 2nd ddg hit was the Wikipedia article, the second word of which was "fictitious".
zw123456 3y ago
Yeah, but How Fucking Cool would it be it if was a real thing. I think it is begging for B movie treatment... OK Down vote me as being Reddit-esque... But come on, it's Sunday afternoon, have a little fun... Tree Octopus's on a Plane.. Tree Octopus- nado Suction cups... We're gonna need a bigger backpack. Sorry, I just couldn't resist. I love this PNW Myth, deserves love right up there with Sasquatch and DB Cooper.
EamonnMR 3y ago
Our librarian used this site in a class about media literacy, with the lesson being that you can't believe everything you read on the internet. I guess it was a good lesson because I still remember it.
uoaei 3y ago
Critical thinking is hard. Stay vigilant. The photoshopped image of an octopus and a sasquatch hand was what first tipped me off. I wanted to believe this was a real animal, octopuses are magnificent creatures.
waynecochran 3y ago
Blaming Sasquatch is hilarious!
einpoklum 3y ago
I was reminded of the initiative for Cascadian secession... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_movement which, when I first read about it, I questioned as a potential hoax. But - no, if you're not from the US, you should know that it's a very real thing, and apparently, a full third (!) of people 18-34 years old support it, according to relatively recent polling mentioned at the link.
99_00 3y ago
In the past, if you believed something just because it was on the internet you were seen as foolish.
wlonkly 3y ago
Wow, that brings back memories. I had a link to this in my Usenet sig.. well, back in the era where one had a Usenet sig.
Octokiddie 3y ago
> The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and *sasquatch*. I feel like I should have figured out this was a gag sooner...
miga 3y ago
There is enough spam here, please avoid posting this one.
SubiculumCode 3y ago
If I had encountered this link on social media I would have been much less likely to entertain the veracity of the claim. But coming from the front page of HN, and only lightly skimming for a couple of seconds, I started being fooled. Shows the power of reputation.
mlongval 3y ago
Love it!
denkmoon 3y ago
This may be an internet hoax, but always watch for drop bears when camping in the bush.
reilly3000 3y ago
I miss when Snopes was about this sort of thing. It still is, but you have to find it amongst a lot of noise. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tree-octopus/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tree-octopus/
kibibyte 3y ago
This was part of my childhood (almost 20 years ago!). Growing up, we had a lesson in either elementary or middle school in which we were all asked to read this website on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus and fill out a research assignment on it. At the end of it, the teacher asked us if we thought it was real and revealed that it wasn't, with the lesson that, yes, even though the internet is a valuable research tool, that we shouldn't believe everything we read. As a bonus, I think we were also asked to review some information on the aluminum foil hat. https://zapatopi.net/afdb/build.html https://zapatopi.net/afdb/build.html
tivert 3y ago
Decades ago, there was a Discovery Channel speculative "documentary" about far future history that had tree octopuses. I wonder if they got the idea from this website and ran with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Is_Wild#Hothouse_World:_100_million_years_in_the_future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Is_Wild#Hothouse_Wo... https://youtu.be/gnasRyT52FU?t=1114 https://youtu.be/gnasRyT52FU?t=1114
kfarr 3y ago
Reminds me of this classic https://web.archive.org/web/19961031232918/http://media.circus.com/~no_dhmo/ https://web.archive.org/web/19961031232918/http://media.circ...
dxs 3y ago
Pacific Northwest lunacy is a tradition: "Welcome to The Church of Tina Chopp" https://tinachopp.church/menu.html https://tinachopp.church/menu.html I used to see graffiti proclaiming "TINA CHOPP IS GOD" all over Bellingham, WA in the early 1980s (and it later spread to Seattle). Still with us...

389 points by cratermoon 3y ago

It's fake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus

blamazon 3y ago

I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: > The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is an Internet hoax created in 1998 by a humor writer under the pseudonym Lyle Zapato. Since its creation, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus website has been commonly referenced in Internet literacy classes in schools and has been used in multiple studies demonstrating children's gullibility regarding online sources of information. [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus

Planktonne 3y ago
> others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment But then they wouldn't learn anything about reading critically.
morelisp 3y ago
Unfortunately the campaign was unsuccessful and octopus paxarboli went extinct not long after the page first was published, before internet access was common and before smartphones could easily take pictures of it etc. Just because there's minimal evidence of something from before the internet, on the internet, doesn't make it a hoax.
- civilitty 3y ago
  Not to mention that 100% of all octopus fossils have been found on land. We have zero evidence of octopus fossils in the ocean.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Unfortunately the campaign was unsuccessful and octopus paxarboli went extinct not long after the page first was published, Largely, the campaign failed because of the joint US/Canadian invasion of the Republic of Cascadia based on (ironically, false) claims of Weapons of Media Deception (WMD) being deployed with imminent plans for use against North American civilian targets.
oatmeal1 3y ago
> I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: I believed it too. The thing is, this is something no one is really incentivized to lie about. If some website says "politician did X", then your lie detector turns on, because it's worth it for lots of websites to lie or mislead about that. It would be very hard to go through life questioning the veracity of every inconsequential bit of information that no one has an incentive to lie about. I don't think it demonstrates much that students believed it. And I especially don't think it means anything about gullibility about information found online. Almost certainly, if it were printed in a book, they'd be even more likely to believe it.
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  Add in that the animal world is full of wacky creatures that don't fit heuristic models for plausibility. People thought the Platypus was a hoax was it was initially discovered. It is real.
  - mc32 3y ago
    Add the propensity to colloquially grant newly discovered things names that borrow from existing things: sea cow, catfish, etc. so why couldn’t there be something called a tree octopus?
    - MattGaiser 3y ago
      Today I learned that a tree crab is a thing. I knew a tree lobster was a thing. There is something that could plausibly be called a tree clam.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > Add the propensity to colloquially grant newly discovered things names that borrow from existing things: sea cow, catfish, etc. so why couldn’t there be something called a tree octopus? There could be. The name of the animal isn't what gives the lie away.
cratermoon 3y ago
It's revealing that a substantial part of that wikipedia article is about Internet literacy studies.
tracerbulletx 3y ago
The poster at the bottom kind of gives away the parody. Pretty fun though, I wish there was a tree octopus now.
bantou_41 3y ago
I think part of the purpose of sharing this website without saying anything about it might be to show that, in the age of the internet and AI, we don’t really verify information before consuming it. It’s not just children who are gullible. A lot of what we read on the internet is second hand information, facts with subjective interpretations, opinions, or straight up false information.
- Hendrikto 3y ago
  > in the age of the internet and AI, we don’t really verify information before consuming it As if this had ever been different. I would even argue that, because it is simply much easier to do, people are more incentivized to fact-check imformation, than 100 years ago.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    I for one think it used to be very different. That is, there used to be some pretty universal, trusted sources of information. Encyclopedia Brittanica, for one simple example. And I'm not saying these sources never had errors or they didn't embed some of the societal biases in their reports, but they clearly had an institutional desire to report facts correctly, and pretty much nobody questioned that intent, regardless of political leanings. The ease with which anyone can publish anything on the Internet is a double-edged sword. It makes it more possible to challenge the status quo, but it also means that some crackpot can produce a slick video that, to many people, is just as valid as some well-researched documentary that at least attempts to be unbiased.
- mikrotikker 3y ago
  Sorry but you gotta be a special kind of retarded to believe this. If you believe this you probably think Jan 6 was an "insurrection", chemtrails are "just contrails" and that we need to ban hydrogen dioxide.
beej71 3y ago
It was good! I got to the end thinking, "I don't know if I've been had or not." The WP article is a great read--recommend.
freitzkriesler2 3y ago
It's the Washington Oregon version of the Dropbear.
- stephenr 3y ago
  Droptopus?
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Had it not been for your comment it would’ve definitely taken me longer to figure out, and I would’ve most likely made a fool out of myself by telling people about it. I was extremely susceptible to this story, because I absolutely love octopuses, and everything related to them. However I’m not an expert and it would not surprise me at all (given how surprising octopuses are generally) that there was a octopus group that could adapt to an extremely high humidity area, so it seems plausible! I like getting fooled like this occasionally cause it keeps you on your toes and shows you how vulnerable and easily fooled we all are.
- jmckib 3y ago
  I immediately thought this looked too absurd to be real, but I wonder if my lack of octopus knowledge helped me out here. I know octopi are pretty smart, but I don’t think of them as being too surprising in their capabilities.
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
> has been used in multiple studies demonstrating children's gullibility And not to make everything about this, but in light of this, interpret various currently fashionable and harmful pseudoscientific ideologies being peddled in schools and backed by the force of the regime. Children are very gullible. That's one major reason why they need parents, to protect them from predation and to guide them toward the minimum of adulthood. Worse still when parents themselves buy into these ideologies.
ortusdux 3y ago
To be fair, tree octopuses sound about as outlandish as land crabs, which I still have trouble believing are real. https://arthropoda.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/coconut-crab.jpg https://arthropoda.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/coconut-crab....
- UncleSlacky 3y ago
  Not to mention the land shark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Shark_(Saturday_Night_Live) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Shark_(Saturday_Night_Liv... and the prairie squid: https://subgenius.fandom.com/wiki/Prairie_squid https://subgenius.fandom.com/wiki/Prairie_squid
  - MarkMarine 3y ago
    And drop bears
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  I think this is a great point. It's easy to come back with a "hah, look how gullible you are" when someone believes hoaxes like this, but that ignores the reality that "truth is often stranger than fiction." I mean seriously, a coconut crab specifically evolved a special breathing apparatus to survive on land - why should that be any different from an octopus having "special adaptations" to keep it from getting desiccated when out of the water for extended periods? It's like when I used to read through Snopes feeds, and 9 times out of 10 I'd think "wow, that's so dumb, how could anyone believe that", and then the tenth time I'd think the same thing for a story that actually ended up being true.
petre 3y ago
I've always liked this one better: https://zapatopi.net/belgium/ https://zapatopi.net/belgium/ “Tourists, business travelers, and other visitors are allowed to "come" to the "country" in order to "witness" its "existence." In reality, these people are waylaid at the common borders of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg and taken to NWO branch facilities where they have false memories of vast sprout fields and chocolate factory tours implanted.”
retrocryptid 3y ago
Meh. You have a parochial opinion of facts.
01100011 3y ago
It was obvious when the page mentioned rainforests, which are on the western flank of the Olympics, but had a map showing only the eastern flank.
parentheses 3y ago
I scanned it and thought. HN post. Must be legit. Good reminder to RTFx.
tejohnso 3y ago
Well I for one appreciate it. I was drawn in after a couple of paragraphs, and then started to doubt and figured I'd check the comments for exactly this kind of thing before I run off and tell my child about an amazing animal I just heard about. Thank you. After reading about parasites that turn ants into zombies to do their bidding, I'm pretty much all out of "that's just a nonsense story" when it comes to nature's variety. I'll be skeptical, but I tend not to outright dismiss immediately.
greggsy 3y ago
The article lists as bald eagles and Sasquatch as natural predators…
- fourthark 3y ago
  That's when I finally caught on!
pschastain 3y ago
Reading the headline I thought it was going to be an article about the octopus tree: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/octopus-tree-of-oregon https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/octopus-tree-of-oregon
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
A little similar to Birds Aren't Real.
RajT88 3y ago
Another one like this, which you have to dive a bit deeper to find the give-aways: https://objectiveministries.org/ https://objectiveministries.org/ (But once you've gone down the rabbit hole, there are some spectacular give-aways)
1024core 3y ago
I saw the photos of snow and immediately realized it was fake.
andreskytt 3y ago
Oh, but dear sir, you forgot about the AI!
swsdsailor 3y ago
Damn. I wanted to believe!

Modified3019 3y ago

http://www.lakemichiganwhales.com/ http://www.lakemichiganwhales.com/

yissp 3y ago

This is great, reminds me of a classic from my childhood, the house hippo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TijcoS8qHIE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TijcoS8qHIE

Borrible 3y ago

Early ancestors of the Squibbon.

krupan 3y ago

Terry Pratchett added these wonderful animals to the world in which his book Nation takes place (one of his very best books, if you ask me). He undoubtedly was inspired by this website

cmehdy 3y ago
Sir Pterry was inspired by just about everything, which in itself is an inspiration to always digest what this world throws at us and turn it into all sorts of fantastic things.

ComputerGuru 3y ago

I randomly come across a link to this every ten years or so. It is put together splendidly well. I must admit however that I’m a tad disappointed that the list of factors contributing to the critical endangerment of this wonderful specimen still has not been updated to include mention of the extinction of its once-primary source of nutrition, the harvest of the spaghetti tree [0]. Perhaps in ten more years this oversight will have been corrected! [0]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/that-time-the-bbc-fooled-its-audience-into-thinking-spaghetti-grew-on-trees/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/that-time-the-bbc-foo...

calibas 3y ago

> Although the tree octopus is not officially listed on the Endangered Species List, we feel that it should be added since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs. The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch.

fultonb 3y ago

It's always crazy running in to one hiking up there

woahitsraj 3y ago

Classic! I remember convincing friends and family members that this was real when I was young. There was something incredibly fun and powerful being a child and able to fool adults who would believe anything they read on the internet. It's amazing how websites like this inoculated myself and many other young people from obvious misinformation on the internet in a fun and mostly harmless way

tspike 3y ago

My uncles spent a summer working tours near Aspen in the 80s. They worked tirelessly to educate the tourist population about the dangers of the Rocky Mountain Alpine Shark.

aerodog 3y ago

I asked ChatGPT if octopuses exist in trees, and to my surprise, ChatGPT 'got it'

chowells 3y ago
Why is that a surprise? Every single text on the subject explains the joke eventually. It's the exact sort of high correlation GPT is good at finding.

wood_spirit 3y ago

The context of this showing up on HN made me kinda assumed it was a chatgpt generated thing. A quick google shows it seems to be a well known classic hoax from the late 90s. But there really are crabs and lobsters that live in trees and things, as do lots of type of mollusc (eg slugs and snails). So it isn’t completely silly. So it’s not like a tree octopus is any more ridiculous than the coconut crab? It seems there is no good way to know the truth anymore, as searching the internet might just find collaborating lies and conjecture…

furyofantares 3y ago
> The context of this showing up on HN made me kinda assumed it was a chatgpt generated thing. It's very likely OP discovered it through the link on this HN post that was at the top yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36739920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36739920
- JayPalm 3y ago
  Yeah, this occurred to me too. Guess we'll likely be inundated with 90's websites for a few days.
  - furyofantares 3y ago
    I hope so
CydeWeys 3y ago
> So it’s not like a tree octopus is any more ridiculous than the coconut crab? It is a lot more ridiculous though because land crabs are a well known thing (e.g. hermit crabs) whereas land octopuses don't exist. Octopuses are very much a water-only type of organism. It just requires a little prior knowledge about the broad strokes of animalian orders.
- wood_spirit 3y ago
  Octopuses are molluscs, and there are lots of land living molluscs, right?

wzy 3y ago

Reminds me of the endangered "Australian Drop bear".

bmmayer1 3y ago

Didn't know it was a hoax. This is the Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus

darkclouds 3y ago

Its a two hour drive from Microsoft headquarters, the perfect location to search for gullible Microsoft employees looking for this octopus, as they would become useful assets for the intelligence community. Think like a spook!

rootsudo 3y ago

I didn't believe it and was widely thinking it is fake, and then I come to the comments and there we are. First the scientific name, obscura just sold it out as fake - but as someone who lived in the area - it would've been much more obvious and probably involved in tons of actual campaigns and protests.

BMc2020 3y ago

Let's not forget the ice worms: Ice Worms and Their Habitats on North Cascade Glaciers https://glaciers.nichols.edu/iceworm/ https://glaciers.nichols.edu/iceworm/ and the Australian Drop Bear https://australian.museum/learn/animals/mammals/drop-bear/ https://australian.museum/learn/animals/mammals/drop-bear/

corndoge 3y ago
Devilish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_worm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_worm
6D794163636F756 3y ago
Aren't iceworms real though?
- carabiner 3y ago
  Ya if you spend time on Cascade glaciers you'll see them wiggling. Pretty common.
worik 3y ago
> and the Australian Drop Bear Urban legend I was told (In Auckland - not Australia) In the war the US army moved vast reserves into North Australia for quite obvious reasons. Tanks on exercises in the Australian desert got very hot, so naturally kept their hatches open whenever they could. Massed tanks on manoeuvres in the desert will from time to time run into trees. Koala spend 90% of their time asleep in trees. Completing the picture a tank blunders into a tree and koala are dislodged and rain down. Through open tank hatches. The "Great Australian Drop Bear" is a recently woken angry Koala in fight mode in a crowded tank.....
- cperciva 3y ago
  See also kangaroos armed with stinger missiles: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shoot-me-kangaroo-down-sport/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shoot-me-kangaroo-down-spo...

easeout 3y ago

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tree-octopus/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tree-octopus/

Daunk 3y ago

I wasn't until I read that the sasquatch was its natural predator that I started to question things...

notorandit 3y ago

For a moment... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octop...

user6723 3y ago

They're out of the water now? Once they learn how to use fire we are all doomed, we're DONE. Sell all your stocks but HODL your BTC.

hinkley 3y ago
What if he’s got a pointed stick?
- hackeraccount 3y ago
  Or a board with a nail in it.

brendev 3y ago

I used to teach a computer science class to elementary-middle school kids. I always did a week on internet literacy, and would open the lesson with a worksheet that included this fella, along with a number of other fake animals, and some that look fake, but aren't. Each kid was supposed to come up with a summary of what the animal was, where they live, what they eat, etc. It was a lot of fun, but I've got to say... Parents: please take some time to teach your kids how to critically evaluate information that they read online.

LanternLight83 3y ago

Somewhat relatedly, there's the marshmello farming mockumentery: https://youtu.be/yflTu150QZw https://youtu.be/yflTu150QZw

rikroots 3y ago
But marsh mallow plants are real! I grew up with them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althaea_officinalis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althaea_officinalis

yalogin 3y ago

Without the reference to the Sasquatch I wouldn’t have figured out this is made up. Well done

sparcpile 3y ago

There was a Discovery Channel special about future evolution that took this idea and ran with it. They had an idea of octopi being more land dwelling and becoming the dominant species.

chmod600 3y ago

I am not quite sure what tipped me off, but I suspected something was off in the first paragraph or two and went to Wikipedia. I think it just seemed out of place, like someone bringing up a topic in a forced way. Kind of “trying too hard”.

ortusdux 3y ago

Crazy link timing! I just got my mug in the mail last week: https://postimg.cc/gallery/YY7f3x3 https://postimg.cc/gallery/YY7f3x3

CrzyLngPwd 3y ago

Fetch me a sky hook, I need to capture a tree octopus!

pvaldes 3y ago

Yep. Inoculating the idea that science is something not to be trusted is a lot of hard work. Very funny, ha ha...

voz_ 3y ago

This kind of thing is malicious. It was maybe cute in the 90s/00s, but now? Too much fake news abound.

qwertox 3y ago

This makes me sad. I once saw my nephew looking at a dino book and I joined him, and for some reason he ended up telling me that they exist in some part of the world. Stupid me laughed at him and told him that they no longer exist, and this has haunted me for years. I say this, because there was a photo of blue teddy-octopi's legs hanging from a tree on the site, and I started imagining a dad telling his kid how this is something real, that he/she should watch for them to see if he/she can spot them occasionally. Hurts my heart, but the site is nice, like a cherished thought which someone wanted to keep alive.

Planktonne 3y ago
If you haven't already read it, you might like Terry Pratchett's Hogfather [1]. [1](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/583655-hogfather https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/583655-hogfather)

Stratoscope 3y ago

People often ask why the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus has such a successful ecological niche that alternates between the rainforest and under the water. The reason is that unlike humans and other land creatures, they are completely immune to the toxic effects of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO). In fact, they require regular immersion in it. This also explains why the octopuses don't migrate farther south. When on the land, they still require ongoing contact with DHMO, which on the Olympic Peninsula is found in abundance in the very air! https://dhmo.org/ https://dhmo.org/

booleandilemma 3y ago

That photo was so ridiculous but I badly wanted to believe it was real!

thyrsus 3y ago

I was completely taken in until the octopus hat. There's no way 1920s fashionistas go from feathers to a pile of brown turds on their heads. The 2nd ddg hit was the Wikipedia article, the second word of which was "fictitious".

zw123456 3y ago

Yeah, but How Fucking Cool would it be it if was a real thing. I think it is begging for B movie treatment... OK Down vote me as being Reddit-esque... But come on, it's Sunday afternoon, have a little fun... Tree Octopus's on a Plane.. Tree Octopus- nado Suction cups... We're gonna need a bigger backpack. Sorry, I just couldn't resist. I love this PNW Myth, deserves love right up there with Sasquatch and DB Cooper.

EamonnMR 3y ago

Our librarian used this site in a class about media literacy, with the lesson being that you can't believe everything you read on the internet. I guess it was a good lesson because I still remember it.

uoaei 3y ago

Critical thinking is hard. Stay vigilant. The photoshopped image of an octopus and a sasquatch hand was what first tipped me off. I wanted to believe this was a real animal, octopuses are magnificent creatures.

waynecochran 3y ago

Blaming Sasquatch is hilarious!

einpoklum 3y ago

I was reminded of the initiative for Cascadian secession... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_movement which, when I first read about it, I questioned as a potential hoax. But - no, if you're not from the US, you should know that it's a very real thing, and apparently, a full third (!) of people 18-34 years old support it, according to relatively recent polling mentioned at the link.

99_00 3y ago

In the past, if you believed something just because it was on the internet you were seen as foolish.

wlonkly 3y ago

Wow, that brings back memories. I had a link to this in my Usenet sig.. well, back in the era where one had a Usenet sig.

Octokiddie 3y ago

> The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and *sasquatch*. I feel like I should have figured out this was a gag sooner...

miga 3y ago

There is enough spam here, please avoid posting this one.

SubiculumCode 3y ago

If I had encountered this link on social media I would have been much less likely to entertain the veracity of the claim. But coming from the front page of HN, and only lightly skimming for a couple of seconds, I started being fooled. Shows the power of reputation.

mlongval 3y ago

Love it!

denkmoon 3y ago

This may be an internet hoax, but always watch for drop bears when camping in the bush.

reilly3000 3y ago

I miss when Snopes was about this sort of thing. It still is, but you have to find it amongst a lot of noise. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tree-octopus/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tree-octopus/

kibibyte 3y ago

This was part of my childhood (almost 20 years ago!). Growing up, we had a lesson in either elementary or middle school in which we were all asked to read this website on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus and fill out a research assignment on it. At the end of it, the teacher asked us if we thought it was real and revealed that it wasn't, with the lesson that, yes, even though the internet is a valuable research tool, that we shouldn't believe everything we read. As a bonus, I think we were also asked to review some information on the aluminum foil hat. https://zapatopi.net/afdb/build.html https://zapatopi.net/afdb/build.html

tivert 3y ago

Decades ago, there was a Discovery Channel speculative "documentary" about far future history that had tree octopuses. I wonder if they got the idea from this website and ran with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Is_Wild#Hothouse_World:_100_million_years_in_the_future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Is_Wild#Hothouse_Wo... https://youtu.be/gnasRyT52FU?t=1114 https://youtu.be/gnasRyT52FU?t=1114

kfarr 3y ago

Reminds me of this classic https://web.archive.org/web/19961031232918/http://media.circus.com/~no_dhmo/ https://web.archive.org/web/19961031232918/http://media.circ...

dxs 3y ago

Pacific Northwest lunacy is a tradition: "Welcome to The Church of Tina Chopp" https://tinachopp.church/menu.html https://tinachopp.church/menu.html I used to see graffiti proclaiming "TINA CHOPP IS GOD" all over Bellingham, WA in the early 1980s (and it later spread to Seattle). Still with us...