Fake Victorian naturalist plate depicting a hippo-octopus hybrid creature.

Plate XLVII of the Royal Society of Natural History presents, with complete institutional seriousness, an animal that is simultaneously a hippopotamus and an octopus, collected in equatorial Africa in 1872 by a man named Crawley who should perhaps have slept more. The anatomical rigor applied to this creature -- complete with internal organ diagrams, suction cup enlargements, and feeding behavior observations -- is impeccable, which only deepens the problem. A marginal note reading 'Fabricated' is the single most credible piece of documentation on the entire plate.

Apr 24, 2026

this image sits 3.3 bits from the center of the collection