Pacific Northwest tree octopus

The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is a fake animal created in 1998 by Lyle Zapato. Zapato's website says the tree octopus is real, and that it lives on both land and water.  Zapato created this website about the fake tree octopus to show how important it is to think carefully about whether things on the Internet are true or not.

The original website that described the fake species is commonly used as an example in internet literacy classes to teach students to check more carefully if sources of information are reliable.

The text included other hoax species and organizations, mixed with links to pages about real species and organizations. Despite the falsehoods shown on the site, all 25 seventh-grade students involved in one well-publicized test believed the content. All but one of the 25 rated the site as "very credible".

 References 

 Other websites 
Official site

Category:Hoaxes
Category:Internet culture