What Do Tentacles Have To Do With Steampunk?

What do tentacles have to do with Steampunk?

Well, I don't know for certain but I have some ideas:

1. Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Lovecraft's Cthulhu, though he only has the face of an octopus and not the body, are popular and have a steampunk connection as well as an octopus connection. 
2. It's an ancient animal—Mysterious—Victorians liked ancient mysteries...lost cities and what not. 
3. It embarks feelings of adventure—Victorians loved adventure. 
4. Its suction cups kind of look like cogs
5. They're extoic—Victorians loved the exotic—they loved exotic places like Japan and Egypt and they loved exotic things
6. It was in the Victorian age when we really began studying the ocean and it was when we first mapped the ocean floor so there was a great interest in the ocean and the creatures who inhabited it. 
7. Or maybe it's just because Octopuses are just so weird. 

And they are pretty weird but in an awesome way.

True Facts About the Octopuses

Octopus Opens Peanut Butter Jar to Eat Fish

Octopus Walking Across Ocean Floor Carrying a Coconut 

Octopus Squirts Black Ink

Octopus Changes Colors

Mimic Octopus Shapes Shift into 15 different species of marine organisms 

Octopuses Have No Skeletons Except for their Skull 

So They Can Squeeze Into Lots Of Places

Octopuses or Octopodes or Octopi (all are accepted plurals for Octopus) are like something a sci-fi author dreamed up. Maybe one of the reasons Octopuses have been adopted by Steampunk is because they are like a fictional animal living in the real world —so they fit in perfectly with Steampunk.