Fact AND Fiction

Fiction: An octopus is a harmless, fun-loving mammal that wants to frolic and play, or be in your food to make it taste better if it’s real little.
Fact: I can’t believe that anyone even thinks this anymore. An octopus might be in your meal… playing dead so that it can come alive in your stomach and eat you! No, probably not that, but they’re really bad and evil so you should watch out. Maybe you were thinking about the Dolphin (see dolphin/octopus comparison).

Fiction: An octopus has only one tentacle.
Fact: An octopus has eight tentacles… and a mouth that’s ready to eat you up! Plus suction cups, etc. Another stupid myth that nobody should believe.

Fiction: An octopus’s life-span is super short, and so that’s why we don’t have to be afraid of them.
Fact: Hello… ever heard of a little thing called logic?!? Even if they only live a few months apiece, a billion octopuses could still wipe out humanity faster than you can say “I should have ignored those myths and realized that the end might very well be close than I had thought.”

Fiction: Are octopuses more dangerous than sharks? No.
Fact: The real answer is yes! In fact, the PBS show has a movie specifically of octopuses eating sharks, and you can watch it on the internet. So this one is definitely a myth and not true.

Fiction: Either you’re with them or your against them.
Fact: This one is actually true, but in a different way. Some people are on their side, so they aren’t really on the human side at all. For example, octopus breeders; defenders of octopus’s rights; octopus shock troops who fight with octo-guns but are themselves humans rather than octopuses; and more.