Cryptids: Freshwater Octopus

Photo by Isabel Galvez

It is said that a medium sizes cephalopod, an octopus, is sometimes found in rivers of North America. It is said that they are 2 to 3 ft long and there were sighting in several places. Octopuses needing a high saline that would mean if they were actually found in freshwater that they are a miracle mutation or evolution allowed them to.

One sighting was on December 24, 1933, by Robert Trice and R.M. Saunders. They were fishing on the Kanawha River near Charleston, West Virginia when they hauled in a 3 ft. octopus. Recent research by Mark Hall proved that this was indeed a hoax. 

On January 30, 1959 people witnessed a grey octopus was seen surfacing and moved onto the bank of the Licking River near Covington Kentucky. 

On November 19, 1999, a dead octopus was found on the bank of the Ohio River at the Falls of Ohio State Park in Jefferson, Indiana on some fossil beds. It was identified as a Caribbean arm stripe octopus or a bumblebee two-stripe octopus, both Atlantic species.  It was not in a state of decomposition meaning its death was recent. This doesn't mean however that it lived in the waters. It's possible that someone had recently abandoned a pet there and did not realize the octopus would survive or that it is another hoax. 

SOURCES:

It's Something Wiki

Nature World News

Octolab