man page for cut

[Richmond]

In the man page for cut it says:

 -b, --bytes=LIST
              select only these bytes

But there is no equals sign in the actual syntax:

echo hello|cut -b 2-5
ello

echo hello|cut -b=2-5
cut: invalid byte/character position ‘=2-5’
Try 'cut --help' for more information.

Why is this?

(An example paints a thousand words).