The origins of the northwest Pacific octopus date back to 1998, when a website was launched to warn the public and rally support to save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.
Although it is entirely fictitious, the site has imitated real conservation campaigns, with calls for action, ecological statistics and references to a list of endangered species.
Educators and defenders of critical thinking quickly saw the potential of the site. It has become a popular teaching tool for digital literacy, asking students to assess whether the octopus of the northwest tree could be real.
After all, lonely cephalopods and octopus are generally linked to water, drying up when they are out of the water too long. And even with specialized skin adaptations, survival in tree awnings seems to be a stretch.
