Tenth of Britons Believe in Mermaids

A new study by an independent cruise comparison website has revealed the top five most common misconceptions about the world's seas and oceans.

An independent cruise comparison website that aims to deliver an unbiased and accurate service to both experienced and first time cruisers has conducted research of 1,281 people across the UK in order to discover what misconceptions Britons have about the seas and oceans around the world.

The study, conducted by www.CruiseCompare.co.uk, asked respondents the multi-answer question ‘Which of the below points are true facts about the ocean?’ The options provided in the study were an even mixture of both true and false points about the ocean.

Of the false facts provided in the study, the point that was believed to be true by the most respondents, 9%, is that Mermaids are real; shortly followed by 8% believing that ‘the sea is blue because of ammonia in fish urine’.

Based on the most commonly believed false facts provided in the study, the top 5 most common misconceptions of the world's seas and oceans are as follows:

Mermaids are real – 9% (of respondents believed this point to be true of the false facts provided)

The sea is blue because of ammonia in fish urine – 8%

The Red Sea is red in colour – 6%

Fish don’t have bones – 5%

Waves are caused by the movement of sealife – 3%

In contrast to the false points respondents stated as true, 2% of the respondents marked ‘humans can’t breathe under the ocean’ as false. Furthermore, 7% believed ‘submarines travel under water’ to be a false fact.

Danielle Fear, managing director of CruiseCompare.co.uk, had the following to say:

“This was fun research to conduct; it was really interesting analysing the results. The respondents who ticked true when asked if Mermaids are real were probably big Disney fans and grew up watching the Little Mermaid!”

She continued:

“I suppose naming a sea ‘The Red Sea’ can be misleading and it isn’t totally unreasonable to believe that name is descriptive of the colour. It was a little shocking to see that some of the respondents believed the true facts to be false, I thought it was common knowledge that humans can’t breathe underwater!”