Historical Illustration of an Octopus (Mislabelled as Cuttlefish) - Scientific Art #3324698 (License: Personal Use)

This intricate Victorian-era woodcut or engraving illustrates a cephalopod with eight prominent, sucker-lined arms and a rounded mantle-characteristic of an octopus, not a cuttlefish (which has ten limbs and a cuttlebone). The artist employed fine cross-hatching and stippling to render texture and depth, typical of 19th-century natural history publications. The mislabeling reflects historical confusion in cephalopod classification before modern taxonomy was standardized.

Commonly found in antique biology textbooks, encyclopedias, or digital archives of historical scientific illustrations; used by educators, historians, and marine biologists to discuss taxonomic evolution, scientific illustration techniques, or misconceptions in early zoology.