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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''Jen:''' Wings? I don't have wings!
As explained [[Non-Mammal Mammaries|elsewhere]], we primates have certain visual cues we rely on to tell a woman from a man; men are generally taller and more muscular. Women are shorter, more curvaceous and have breasts. This is because we are ''Sexually Dimorphic'' animals.
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There are several alien or fantastical creatures in which the sexes are wildly different. This tends to run towards the extreme end of the Earth scale and beyond: they could be greatly unequal in strength or intelligence; one sex could even be reduced to an inert breeding machine (like the real-life scale insect) or parasite (which actually does happen on earth with deep-sea dwelling angler fish)!
Tends to go hand-in-hand with [[Bizarre Alien Biology]]. See also [[Cute Monster Girl]], [[One-Gender Race]], [[Humanoid Female Animal]], [[Mister Seahorse]], [[The Ugly
Taken to the logical extreme, this leads to [[
Do also take note that this trope, in spite of its name, is
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime
* We reiterate: See [[Cute Monster Girl]].
* This also ''appears'' to be the case for the plants in ''[[Trigun]]'', with the girls in bulbs with the big strange eyes and all, and the only two guys walking around looking like blond men. But later manga material shows that Vash and Knives really are just mutants (probably throwbacks; the odds that the people who engineered the plants didn't use human DNA are vanishingly small), because some female independents come from space; the twins are just even weirder.
== Comic Books ==
* [[Green Lantern
** Even more confusingly, there are ''also'' female Guardians who look like Guardians. They originally came to be when Kyle Rayner (possessing at the time the godlike powers of Ion) recreated the Guardians years after Hal Jordan (at the time possessed by evil entity Paralax) wiped them all out. Of course in the current series all this is ignored and the guardians are shown in flashbacks to have been always both sexes. Don't ask where that means the Zamorans came from. [[Sarcasm Mode|Aren't retcons a wonderful thing]]?
* In Phil Foglio's ''[[XXXenophile
** This is then given an extra twist at the end of the story. After making "First Contact" with a human explorer, a giant [[Humongous Mecha|battlesuit]] bursts into the room- and the Martians assume that the giant robot must be a human female.
** Huldra (female [[All Trolls Are Different|trolls]]), in the story ''A Beautiful Tale'', were [[Super Strength|scary-powerful]] [[Cute Monster Girl
* The Badoon, a ''[[Marvel Comics]]'' alien race, have scaly reptilian males and fur-covered females. The females are also stronger and tougher, but less violent and cunning than the males, and the sexes don't interact except during their once-in-a-lifetime mating frenzy. The females also have [[Non-Mammal Mammaries]], despite laying eggs, though it's possible that they do suckle their young.
* ''[[ROM Spaceknight|Rom Spaceknight's]]'' enemies the Dire Wraiths come in two flavors: the technology-using males, who look like ugly, fanged, gangly-limbed Pillsbury Doughboys; and the sorcery-using females, who are pure [[Starfish Alien
* In the pre-Crisis version of the Vega system, one world's male inhabitants look very much like humans. The females look like giants snails. To quote the gamebook, "This seems to work for them."
* In ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (
* Male Warlocks from ''[[Nemesis the Warlock]]'' walks on a pair of goat-esque hooves, while female have centaur-like bodies.
* This concept seems to have been parodied in [[She-Hulk]]'s series with the Thaloomians, the interdimensional race that the Living Eraser is a member of. Males are short, chubby, and toad like, while females all look like She-Hulk. The ruler of these aliens wanted to marry Jenn, claiming she resembled the perfection of his species. Jenn herself claimed it was like "one of those cheesy pulp-style science-fiction worlds where all the women are fabulous babes and the men look like something I'd scrape off the bottom of my shoe!" Of course, it's doubtful even the typical kidnap victims would be any less angry towards her abductor...
== Films -- Live-Action ==
* The Devaronians of ''[[Star Wars]]'' (See picture [[media:200px-Devaronians.jpg|here]]). The males look like devils. Hairless, with pointed teeth and large triangular horns. Also kind of small. The females are tall, hornless, covered in thick fur, and look like humanoid lemurs.
** Some artists, especially the great Jan Duursema, draw female Devaronians that look a little like the lemurs shown above, and more like hornless versions of the males (or red skinned humans with black spots), as seen [
*** Female Devaronians vary a lot, from the fairly hairless Sian Jeisel to [
** Another ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] example are the Cathar. Men look very much like saber-tooth lions who happen to be bipedal and have opposable thumbs. Women tend towards the [[Catgirl]] end of the scale.
*** Though, rather humorously, female Cathar looked just as animalistic as the males until they decided [[Catgirl]] Juhani in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' was a Cathar. Perhaps explainable due to the two being subspecies of one race.
** Not to mention the Twi-leks, where the men range from "mildly ugly" to "monstrous" while the women are almost all attractive.
** Maybe a case of [[Beauty Equals Goodness]], seeing as nearly every male twi'lek seen is a corrupt evil bastard, while all females are good people or at least innocent slaves.
*** Probably the case, as looking at some "good" male Twi'leks, like [
**** Unless of course it's Darth Talon, because [[Evil Is Sexy]]. Only for females, though. Which brings us full circle back to the
* The novelization of ''[[Star Trek IV:
** The "male Deltan" is later established as an Efrosian, the only other seen member of the species being the Federation President in the ''Star Trek VI'', due to reuse of makeup.
*** In the ''[[Star Trek: Titan]]'' novels, the Efrosians come from "Efros Delta", so you ''could'' call them Deltans, but they aren't ''those'' Deltans.
* In the goofy ''[[Mom and Dad Save The World]]'', the nonhuman natives of Spengo have males with dog-heads and females with fish-heads.
* ''[[Evil Alien Conquerors]]''; the male aliens look just like human males, but the females look... just plain weird.
* In the movie version of ''[[Land of the Lost (
* In ''Zone Troopers'', a group of American soldiers in WWII discover crashed aliens in Axis territory. The males are tall, pretty, blue-skinned Aryans. The females, as it's later discovered, {{spoiler|are hairy bug-eyed mole people}}. Needless to say, the soldiers had a bit of a shock with that revelation.
== Literature ==
* Weird exception: With all the [[Starfish Aliens]] in Wayne D. Barlowe's ''Expedition'', it's interesting to note that this trope is hardly used ''at all''. Indeed, it's often hard to tell if the terms "male" and "female" even apply; many species are functionally hermaphroditic, and mating impregnates both individuals. The closest thing would be the female [
* The Termagant Trogs in ''[[The Edge Chronicles]]''. The dominant females are, as indicated by the name, massive hulking bald Amazons. Their husbands are skinny, shrimpy and rather pallid creatures usually kept locked up.
** As if that wasn't weird enough...when the females come of age, they undergo an induced [[Metamorphosis]] from sweet, ethereal little redheaded girls into the aforementioned bald (and [[Meaningful Name|bad-tempered]]) Amazons. {{spoiler|If they miss the associated ceremony, they're ''[[Not Growing Up Sucks|stuck]]'' in the juvenile form.}}
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* Theodore Sturgeon's "The World Well Lost" centers on a pair of fugitive "[[Yaoi Guys|loverbirds]]" from the planet Dirbanu, which has shunned contact with Earth. The loverbirds are initially assumed to be a male and female, but they manage to explain, via some illustrations, that male and female Dirbanu are vastly different in appearance. In fact, the main reason why the Dirbanu dislike humans is due to homophobia, because they perceive all human relationships as being homosexual.
* The Cygnans in the novel ''The Jupiter Theft'' had human-sized females and insect-like parasitic males that were permanently attached to the females.
* ''[[
** However, ancient Kzinti females ''were'' entirely
*** Strangely enough, Kzinti (in Man-Kzin Wars) consider the human sexes to be separate alien species, based on behavioral differences. A human female (Manrrett) is considered to have apparently faster reflexes, higher pain tolerance, and greater intellectual insight, than a human male (Man).
** Don't forget Grogs. The adult females are large furry cones with a mouth, which cannot move from the rock they attach themselves to. Young females are something like alien bulldogs, and young males are akin to chihuahua, neither of which are sentient. Adults telepathically control the young into breeding, and use the same telepathy to force prey animals to leap into their mouths, since giant immobile cones aren't good at hunting.
* In ''[[Flatland]]'', men are polygons (whose number of sides and symmetry indicates their social class) and all women are single
** In ''Flatterland'', a 2001 sequel by Ian Stewart, it is implied that the females utilize the males in detaching a segment after sometimes folding the segment into a new shape with roughly the same number of sides as the male. The females are also confirmed to be multi-sided beings that are rotated into a third dimension, [[Voodoo Shark|which just brings up even more questions, including already-answered questions, the answers to which were suddenly made invalid]].
* The Khepri in ''[[Perdido Street Station]]'' and all of [[China Mieville|China Mieville's]] [[The Scar
** In the sequel, ''[[
* The dominant race of the Empire of Azad in Iain M. Banks' ''[[The Culture/The Player of Games|The Culture]]'' has three sexes: One is male, the 'apex' has ovaries and "a kind of reversible vagina", and the female has a womb. The only non-sexual difference between the sexes is the [[Kick the Dog|eugenically bred-in]] lowered intelligence for non-apices. Sexism here sees females as breeders and domestics, males as workhorses and disposable soldiers.
* In [[Larry Niven]]'s Draco Tavern stories, all the Chirpsithra were female. There are males, but the Chirpsithra won't talk about them.
** In one of the stories, the Chirp males are revealed. {{spoiler|They're the "red demons", essentially mindless beasts.}}
* [[Jack Chalker]]'s ''[[Well World]]'', in all its glory. Too many examples to list.
* The Piggies and Buggers in ''[[Ender's Game|Speaker for the Dead]]''. Especially the piggies. The buggers are about as sexually dimorphic as real bugs. Both species call ''humans'' weird for having sexes so similar that both can perform the same societal function.
** The piggies' life cycle and reproduction is strange enough that it really deserves to be explained in full detail (though put in spoilers). [[spoiler:Both sexes start out small and grublike, but the dimorphism starts quickly. The males develop into the pig-like form that the humans in the story first assume were the only form, but will develop into enormous trees upon death and retain their sentience upon ''being ritually vivisected''
:The females, on the other hand, almost all stay small and grublike, and after a certain time are carried by the pig-like males to the trees, and are ''impregnated by said trees'' via pollen. Then, when the young they're carrying are ready to be born, they ''eat their way out of their mother''. In addition, the occasional female will develop into a pig-like form like the males to serve as a matriarch, and eventually also be vivisected to become a "mothertree", which holds all the young and nourishes them with its sap.]] "Bizarre sexual dimophism" doesn't even ''begin'' to cover it.
** There's also the {{spoiler|apparently female-only deer-like creatures that are impregnated by the grass-like male half of the species}}. The xenobiologists spend half the book puzzled over evidence of genetic exchange (which implies the species don't reproduce by parthenogenesis like some [[wikipedia:Desert Grassland Whiptail Lizard|earth species]] do), yet without any apparent presence of males.
*** This is all a relatively recent development from an evolutionary standpoint, caused by {{spoiler|the Descolada, a highly-adaptable virus that literally unravels DNA strands. The only things that can survive it are those who have adapted to use it}}.
* The Tralfamadorians from [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''[[Slaughterhouse
▲* The Tralfamadorians from [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''[[Slaughterhouse Five]]'' claim that humans have seven sexes, cases of [[Unreliable Narrator]] notwithstanding--likely because they can see through time as well as space. Some of the "sexes" they recognize are "male homosexuals", "women over sixty-five" and "baby".
* In David Brin's ''[[Uplift Storm]]'' trilogy, male urs are much smaller than females, and generally less intelligent (though sentient; a male urs is a secondary character in the series). Females have pouches to carry their mate around.
* In Dennis L. McKiernan's ''Mithgar'' series, dragons are the male of a species. What are the females? Of all things, krakens!
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** Played straight with the pictsies, tiny [[Bee People]] whose female breeders ("keldas") start out the same size as males, but grow twice as tall and spherically-fat after a lifetime of birthing hundreds of offspring. A kelda's rule over her clan is absolute, as she's mother to most and wiser than any.
*** Which isn't saying much as male Pictsies are impulsive and slow to think, even for a [[Proud Warrior Race]]. They'd probably all be dead without a kelda to keep them in line.
* Similar to Discworld, ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' inverts the trope with the dwarf race, with it being stated that female dwarves are often mistaken for men due to being similar to the males in voice and appearance. As every male dwarf we encounter in the book has a prominent beard, some readers have interpreted this as meaning that the female dwarves even have beards.
** In the films this became a rather comedic scene where Gimli humorously explains this phenomenon to a human woman. The human woman (Eowyn) then turns around and looks at Aragorn to see if Gimli is pulling her leg, and he mouths, "It's the beards," and gestures at his chin.
** Confirmed in ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', which says "For the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike."
* [[
** Averted with Kreeblim, a female alien who looks very different to the previously introduced male one, Broxholm. The human narrator initially assumes this trope is in play, but it turns out that they are of completely different species.
* ''[[Chanur Saga]]'': The ''stsho'' have "bizarre sexual trimorphism"; their sexes are called "gtst", "gtste", and "gtsto". If emotionally disturbed, they will undergo "phasing" and [[Gender Bender|change sex]] as well as personality.
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* In ''[[The True Meaning of Smekday]]'' by Adam Rex, the heroine meets one of the Boov who are invading Earth and assumes he's a boy. When she thinks about this, she realizes that he could be a girl, or even that his species might not ''have'' boys and girls. When she asks, he tells her she's right, he ''is'' a boy...and then he proceeds to explain that his species has seven genders and "boy" is only one of them. They translate in English to: girl, boy, boygirl, girlboy, boyboygirl, and boyboyboyboy.
* In [[Frank Herbert]]'s ''[[Dune]]'' series, {{spoiler|Bene Tleilax females have been genetically altered, and serve as their axlotl tanks, basically giant wombs on life support}}.
* In ''[[Planet of Adventure
* In the ''[[
** And in the ''[[Star Trek Expanded Universe]]'', Andorians have four sexes, based on a throwaway line in ''[[Star Trek:
* In ''[[Everworld]]'', the Hetwan males are humanoid, while the females are described as transparent bags of organs with wings. How they reproduce: Hetwan males tear the females apart and eat them, and new Hetwan form at the males' waist.
* In Edgar Rice Burroughs's ''[[Tarzan]]'' series, the people of the lost city of Opar consist of a tribe of stunted, hairy, almost apelike men ruled over by a beautiful, entirely human-looking woman. It's implied that the inhabitants degenerated by mating with great apes, but somehow the degeneration didn't affect females the way it did males.
* In ''[[Man After Man]]'', one species of post-''Homo sapiens'' hominid developed the ability to hibernate. As males slept for most of the year, whereas females remained awake to nurse their young except in the depths of winter, the sedentary males wound up having a lifespan several times as long as that of the nomadic females.
** [[Dougal Dixon]]'s work has a lot of this, like the Matriarch Tinamou, Bardelot and the Common Pine Chuck from ''[[After Man:
* [[John Varley]]'s ''[[Gaea Trilogy]]'' features a dimorphic intelligent species in which the gas-inflated males are living blimps and the deep-diving females are organic submarines. They begin life as sexless, snakelike animals, then choose which adult sex to metamorphose into when their consciousness and race-memory emerges. Mating takes place at the ocean's surface, aside from which the two sexes never interact.
* In [[Sergey Lukyanenko]]'s ''[[Spectrum]]'', the main character meets several members of a race of [[Reptilians]] (according to the book cover, they look like [[Babylon 5|Narns]]). Later, his [[Love Interest]] explains that the non-sentient animals they travel with are actually their females, as she saw one of the aliens mating with one of the animals. That or [[But You Screw One Goat!|something else]]. The cause for this appears to be an ancient cataclysm that affected all known races, causing many of the bizarre biological and psychological features of the aliens.
* In ''[[The Steerswoman]]'' series, female demons are tall, spray acid from under their arms, and can make sculptures (out of a wax-like substance that their bodies produce). Male demons are much shorter and cannot make these sculptures. {{spoiler|Since these sculptures are how demons communicate, this is a major social barrier.}}
* ''[[
== Live-Action TV ==
* The Pak'ma'ra from ''[[Babylon
** In the episode with the Pak'ma'ra pornography, the doctor specifically states that a species like the Pak'ma'ra is sexually incompatible with humans. From a comment made by Gideon moments later, it can be inferred that this Pak'ma'ra underwent surgery or is wearing a prosthetic to get the right equipment.
* The future aquatic apes (Mer) from ''[[Primeval]]''.
* This trope is played with in the first season of ''[[
* In the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode "Beer Bad", a group of male frat boys - and Buffy - drink cursed beer that causes them to "de-evolve" physically, mentally, and psychologically into Neanderthals. The males undergo a drastic physical change, becoming brutish and bestial with crooked teeth, heavy brow ridges, and plenty of extra hair, their intelligence only barely better than an animals'. Buffy, however, still looks mostly human and attractive, a [[Nubile Savage]] type, and can still talk, albeit in [[Hulk Speak]]. Possibly justified in that Xander took her home earlier than the others and they thus drank far more of it.
== Oral Tradition ==
* According to some traditions, the male equivalent of a mermaid is a "merrow." Merrows are hideous but friendly to humans, as long as said humans don't try to steal their wives. Of course, mermaids are hot, so [[Humans Are
== Puppet Shows ==
* In the ''[[Dark Crystal]]'' film, the two Gelflings look quite similar, but possess a significant hidden difference, leading to this interesting exchange:
{{quote|
'''Kira:''' Of course not. You're a boy. }}
* Planet Koozbane from ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' showed a "[[Getting Crap Past the Radar|mating ritual]]" of the Koozbanian creatures and they looked nothing alike.
* Played with by Ronn Lucas. His main puppet, Scorch the dragon, learned from a book that he was missing a certain anatomical feature and must, therefore, be female. {{spoiler|He was holding the book upside down and did, in fact, have the horn shown.}}
== Tabletop Games ==
* The Skaven of ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' fantasy take this to extreme of the females being non-sentient and even more rat-like than the males--"breeders", as they are called, basically look like Ogre-sized or larger female non-anthropomorphic rats, made even bigger by the fact they are swollen so huge with litters that they can't walk.
** The current Codex seems to show that there are normal size sentient females.
* Likewise, in a non-canon third-party ''[[Dungeons
* In ''[[Castle Falkenstein]]'' there ''are'' no female Dwarfs. Dwarfs always mate with Fairy women-if the child's male, it'll be a Dwarf like dad, otherwise, it'll be whatever sort of Fairy mom is. (There are male Fairies.) See [[Gender Equals Breed]].
* The ''[[Dungeons
** Let's talk about sphinxes shall we? There are technically four sexes: Androsphinxes (male human head) Gynopshinxes (female human head) Criosphinxes (ram's head) and hieracosphinxes (hawk's head) of respectively [[Lawful Good]], [[True Neutral]], [[Chaotic Neutral]] and [[Chaotic Evil]] alignment. Gynosphinxes are female, the others are [[Always Male]]. A gynosphinx mating with a hieraco- or criosphinx always produces hieraco- or criosphinxes as offspring, while if mating with an androsphinx they produce twins, one of which is a gynosphinx and the other an androsphinx. This means that, for obvious reasons, gynosphinxes don't like mating with crio- or hieracosphinxes much, which means that the other two reproduce pretty much entirely through ''rape''. Androsphinxes on the other hand don't like mating at all much, and it is noted that gynosphinxes will pay adventurers handsomely for the location of an androsphinx. In other words, ''[[Dungeons
*** And very likely going extinct, if gynosphinxes aren't having enough daughters to replace themselves each generation.
** There are also
** ''[[Pathfinder]]'' has the lashunta, a humanoid extra-terrestrial species with males and females so vastly different that it affects their racial ability score modifiers: their males are short, stocky and covered with hair and have a +2 bonus to Strength and a -2 penalty to Wisdom, their females are tall, thin and graceful and have a +2 bonus to Charisma and a -2 penalty to Constitution, both sexes have a +2 racial bonus to Intelligence.
* The ''[[Talislanta]]'' game does this with not one, but two species:
** In the first example, the stooped, wrinkled females are Gnorls and the gangly, monkey-like males are Weirdlings. The former live in elaborate cavern homes, while the latter live in simple burrows; they inhabit different regions, but come together every 50 years or so to mate. Both sexes were named separately by outsiders, who'd thought they were different races at the time, and no Gnorl ''or'' Weirdling will admit what (if anything) they call their mutual species.
** In the second example, female Batreans are [[Green-Skinned Space Babe|Green Skinned Space Babes]], complete with hyper-seductive pheromones, while their male counterparts are grotesque, hulking ogre-ish creatures. The females are intelligent and live in Polynesian-style villages, while the moronic males shamble around in the jungle, looking for edible things to hit.
* In one of the many ''[[
== Video Games ==
* The Grekim from the [[Real Time Strategy|RTS]] ''[[Achron]]'' have three genders (octo, pharo, and sepi). Octos crawl along the ground with six limbs out to the side like an insect or crab, with the remaining 2 held out front like arms. Sepis float slightly above the ground with their tentacles dangling beneath them. Pharos walk around with six limbs directly beneath them, and the other two out front. The changes in body types get even weirder with the 'higher' classes. Did we mention that they are all [[
* In ''[[
** It's debated whether or not Miltank and Tauros are opposite genders of the same
** Burmy, based on a bagworm, evolves into a Mothim if male or a Wormadam if female. Their appearances are VERY different, as Mothim is a moth and Wormadam is still a pupa.(Like real bagworms.) Wormadam actually has three appearances, but that's unrelated. Other examples: In the anime, a Latias produced a Latios egg like the Volbeat/Illumise thing. Some species also have sexual trimorphism: Only male Kirlia can evolve into Gallade, but both genders can evolve into Gardevoir. Only female Snorunt can evolve into Froslass, but both can evolve into Glalie. Combee can be both genders, but only females evolve into Vespiquen, males do not evolve.(Like bees.) Also Rufflet/Braviary and Vullaby/Mandibuzz are considered counterparts, but they don't produce each others' eggs much like Tauros/Miltank.
** Also some species have ACTUAL sexual dimorphism, as in visual differences in the same species based on gender. Most of them are tiny differences(such as female Rattata having shorter whiskers) but a few species are very different. Hippopotas/Hippowdon are quite different in color. Male Unfezant are much "flashier" than females.(Because they're birds.) [[Pink Girl, Blue Boy|Male Frillish are blue, females are pink]]...and when they evolve the male gets a huge Pringles mustache while the female gets a fluffy collar.
* In ''[[
* Similar to Darkstakers above, the ''[[
* [[World of Warcraft|The Draenei]]. The males are huge and bulky, with large, ridged tails, forehead plates, and catfish whiskers. Their kinswomen are lithe and willowy (they're almost the same height as the boys, but would appear to [[Huge Guy, Tiny Girl|weigh perhaps half as much, if that]]) with short, thin tails and prominent horns. They also have catfish-like tendrils, but theirs sprout from behind the ears instead of on the face.
** Also trolls, in the same universe. This is especially true of forest and ice trolls, but even the (playable) jungle trolls are glaringly dimorphic. Females have tiny tusks, pointy little noses, and ''can'' be [[Cute Monster Girl
*** There's an idle animation where they pop their back, briefly reaching full height. It's... startling, to say the least. The only reason they don't stay standing tall is they would otherwise not fit into doors. A Darkspear troll male (what you can play as) is tallest thing you can be, standing straight up it's still about a half-foot taller than a Tauren male.
**** ''[[Crystal Dragon Jesus|Holy Light]]''... his head scrapes the top of the screen!
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** Averted with the Gnomes and Goblins, where the dimorphism is comparably normal. The male and female gnomes stand at the same height and have almost the same proportions. Goblins have the same posture, noses, ears, size and proportions; the only major diference is that the women have lighter and smoother skin.
** It should be noted, a lot of the dimorphism in playable races comes mostly from the playerbase complaining, Trolls, Tauren, and Blood elves were '''extremely''' close to one another in body shape in their early alpha models, granted, female trolls were ''terrifying'', Tauren women were...meh. and Blood elves were actually very good looking (The males became dimorphic because players were complaining about them being too skinny... [[Reality Is Unrealistic|nevermind the fact of all the human-like player races, they had the most normal body shape]]). We didn't know if this would have applied to female worgen, as at the time they weren't even playable in alpha, and the player responses were ''already'' negative.
** More or less averted with the Blood Elves. Both male and female have long, beautiful hair, similar postures, facial features/proportions, etc. The main difference is that the males are significantly more muscular and sometimes have facial hair (never more than a small goatee, though) and females have a mild form of [[Hartman Hips]] and a "thinner" face.
** And now we have Worgen: the men are big, bestial wolf-men; women look like characters out of a furry webcomic.
* Every species in ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'', except the Humans and the Liir (who are hermaphroditic), have some kind of this or another. The Hivers are [[Bee People]] so this is to be expected (not to mention that workers and warriors are sexless to begin with); Zuul females are approximately three times the size of the males and animalistic while the males are weedy [[Psychic Powers|psionic]] [[Mind Manipulation|masterminds]] with a specialty in [[Mind Rape]]; Tarka males that become fertile (which only about one in a thousand do, and which can only be accomplished by eating unfertilized Tarka eggs) approximately double in size; and Morrigi females are basically dragons while the males are more akin to birds.
** This also receives a kind of reverse-lampshading in the fluff, where it's noted that due to the death of sexism in Human society and the ''lack'' of dimorphism between men and women, most other races actually have a hard time telling the difference.
* Comes into play in ''[[Grandia (
* Those huge, blind, [[Made of Titanium|nigh-invulnerable]] Berserkers in ''[[Gears of War]]''? That's a female Locust Drone. The male drones could pass for humans in poor lighting conditions. It's also stated that Berserkers are tied down during sex so they don't beat the Drones to pulp during the Act. Oddly though, the [[Hive Queen]] is decidedly more of a [[Gorgeous Gorgon]].
* On the MUD ''Dark & Shattered Lands'', there's the Leonine race, which may just take the cake. The males are Wemics, basically centaurs with lions instead of horses. The females are Felars, pretty much just catgirls, which can have fur on as much as ninety or as little as ten percent of their bodies. Yes, the males are ''quadrupedal'' and the females are ''bipedal.'' Cue a huge number of off-color jokes...
* The female Covenent Elites from ''Halo'', as seen in the Halo Legends animation anthology do not resemble their male counterparts much. Although they have the same coloring, they look considerably more humanoid.
* Male Sadida from ''[[
* Subverted in the ''[[Monkey Island]]'' series with the mermaids and mermen. Mermaids are fairly exotic and beautiful as a sailor might expect, but there's a
* [[Our Orcs Are Different|Orcs]] in the Russian MMO ''[[Allods Online]]'' are dimorphic enough to give [[WoW]]'s draenei and trolls a run for their money. The males are hulking, hunched brutes with huge tusks; the females are athletic-looking gray-skinned women with [[Cute Little Fangs]].
* ''[[Lineage 2]]'' has male dwarves looking like old bearded men, albeit quite
* Though less extreme than some other examples, the insectoid Kephera of ''[[Lusternia]]'' straddle this trope. The males are about four to five feet tall, dexterous, hardy, and generally warriors; the females are six to seven feet tall, considerably more intelligent and charismatic, and much slower/bulkier due to their thoraxes. Their society is matriarchal, with one Queen having many mates.
* The Rap Men and Rap Women in ''Rhythm Tengoku'' count.
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** Played straight with the Norn, however. Males are hulking brutes with shoulders that would put [[World of Warcraft|WoW]] to shame, while females are simply tall humans.
* In the flavor text of [[Ascendancy]], it is mentioned that the Ofra have seventeen (17) sexes.
* In ''[[League of Legends]]'' Yordle female look like tiny, pointy-eared, blue-skinned women with white hair- quite squat and with rather wide faces (depending on the artist) but basically humanoid. Yordle ''males'' on the other hand vary from looking like short gnome-like fellows with massive facial hair (but not blue skin) to resembling bipedal ''hamsters''- either way they look nothing like the females. Compare [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L78zEKWCMII/TGo-To68QzI/AAAAAAAAAsg/UxxmussJF3E/s1600/Tristana_Splash_0.jpg Tristana] with [https://web.archive.org/web/20120218093853/http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dJIqB1T9kgo/TZjM04bFPMI/AAAAAAAAAQY/cst6O1xHjwM/s1600/Teemo_Splash_.jpg Teemo]. This largely stems from them originally being 2 seperate races (Yordles and Meglings) who were [[
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* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', in the [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/080813 Years of Yarncraft MMO arc].
* ''[[At The Heart Of It All]]'', written by the creator of ''[[Concession]]'' featured a [[Green-Skinned Space Babe|cute female alien]] who was discussing another alien race with Immy, the protagonist: "Their females look much like us, but their males are giant room-sized beasts with [[Naughty Tentacles|twelve tentacles]] who only think with the most primal urges of eating and reproduction..." Cut to Immy zooming off in a rocket.
* Thuxians from ''[[Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire]]'' exhibit a fairly mild form of this trope, assuming that the one male and one female seen in the comics are typical examples of their sex. Thuxians look vaquely like Xenomorphs in the ''[[Alien]]'' movies (they have a similarly shaped head, no visible eyes and somewhat similar tail). Al (male) is green, the back of his head is rounded and his face is shaped so that he looks to have a large nose (he doesn't seem to have nostrils, though). Tal (female) is blue and her head looks more like that of the Xenomorphs, extending further back and not having a nose like Al has.
** Maybe Al's just ugly.
* "The People" in ''[[
** In particular, firstborn children are considered to "belong to the goddess"
** The author, Ursula Vernon, based a huge amount of the work on the real-life characteristics of the anthropomorphized animals; while the mythology is taken from real world myths and legends. Definitely someone who [[Shown Their Work|did the research]], and did it well.
*** It helps to know that Ursula was an anthropology major in college and a post-grad student of Weird Knowledge in real life.
** For those who don´t feel like checking [[The Other Wiki]], [[Don't Explain the Joke|that means]] [[Hot Amazon|Blood]] [[Love Makes You Crazy|Eye´s]] [[Exotic Equipment]] looks ''almost exactly'' like [[The Woobie|Ed´s]], only ''slightly'' smaller.
** Not even that: Females have a blunter, more square glans penis than males: any size-difference is negligible, with neither males or females being statistically significantly better endowed than the other, and with females equipment being fully-erectable just like the males, for use in dominance displays.
* In the now-long-defunct webcomic ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20210511165014/http://evilish.pensandtales.com/ Evilish]'', mermaids have fish tails while mermen have legs with fins. This makes the former jealous because only the latter can leave the sea to venture on land.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Draconia Chronicles]]'' while the Dragons and Tigers females that are most prominently featured are anthropomorphic, the males of their respective races are actual full feral formed [https://web.archive.org/web/20120105061404/http://www.2wconline.net/draconia_033.html Dragons] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20120105054217/http://www.2wconline.net/draconia_101.html Tigers]
* In ''[[
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' has a few sophont species with unusual for Earth reproductive adaptations. Gzeaul male and female [https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-04-27 with clothes], [https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-06-11 without clothes]. But then, there are marsupial humanoid Qlaviqloids [https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-12-11 with three sexes: male, female, and muftale]; the only differences visible when they are clothed are in head shape and slightly different skin tone, either may or may not be related to sexual trimorphism.
== Web Original ==
* In Lore Sjoberg's ''Book of Ratings'' entry for [https://web.archive.org/web/20110204131017/http://www.bookofratings.com/hostess.html "Hostess Products"], it is suggested that the cake and frosting portions of a Hostess cupcake are an example of this.
* [http://rpowell77.deviantart.com/art/Extreme-Sexual-Dimorphs-294860775 This picture]
== Western Animation ==
* Truly extreme ''[[
* ''[[
* Behold Mr. Mxyzptlk and his girlfriend, [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/49/MxyDCAU.png Gsptlsnz]. Note that they're both 5th-dimensional imps with godlike powers, so it's possible that they both just ''choose'' to look that way.
* From ''[[
* A throwaway gag on ''[[South Park]]'' has a male Gelgamek, a stocky green individual marginally larger than a male human of similar age and social standing, mention that the Gelgamek vagina is three feet wide, and [[Vagina Dentata|filled with razor-sharp teeth]]. One can only imagine what the rest of the Gelgamek female looks like.
* The [
* In ''[[Star Wars:
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Treasure Planet]]'' the dog-man alien scientist Doppler winds up a couple with the cat-woman captain Amelia. Fair enough, just one of those soft sci-fi things. However, their children turn up in the
* Zane and Zair from ''Redakai'' are a minor example. Despite being siblings (therefore [[Gender Equals Breed|most likely]] the same species), Zane has [[Little Green Men|green skin]], [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|blue hair]], and darkened
* In ''[[Heathcliff and The Catillac Cats]]'', the male [[Funny Animal]] characters are of the [[Civilized Animal]] type. Riff-Raff's girlfriend Cleo, however, seems to be a step higher on the scale, looking more like the [[Petting Zoo People]] type.
== Real Life ==
[[Image:NBC 2014 Ident.jpg|link=NBC|thumb|He only looks like [[NBC|this]] to try to find a mate.]]
* Fish:
** In some species of anglerfish, after the male attaches himself to the female, his body degenerates until only his testes remain. He ceases to exist as an independent organism, and the female has sperm on tap for the rest of her life. No surprise why the angler fish won the titles of ''[[
** Whalefish and bignoses are members<ref>female and male, respectively</ref> of the same species of abyssal fish so wildly different from one another that for the longest time, scientists thought that they were entirely different [[One-Gender Race]] species. Not only that, but they have a juvenile stage which is completely distinct from both of them and was itself mistaken for a third species.
* Birds:
** A great many birds have brightly colored males and plain, often larger females. In fact, the word for a male hawk or falcon is "tiercel", which comes from the french word for "one third", because male raptors are a third smaller than females. This makes a certain evolutionary
** Peafowl are good examples of extreme difference between the sexes, as are most Galliforms (Chickens, pheasants, turkeys, etc.)
** For an inversion of the usual trend, see the [[wikipedia:Eclectus Parrot|Eclectus Parrot]]. Males are a well-camouflaged green, females are a gaudy red, blue, and purple (Eclectuses are one of the only parrots to practice polygamy, and the females bright colors make it easier for the male to find his ladies on their respective nests). They were actually classified as two different species until (it is rumored) someone caught them mating.
** Another odd inversion: the Phalaropes. For some reason, this group of little Arctic shorebirds have reversed the usual avian gender roles. Females are brightly colored and fight over males, who are drabber and stay with the nest. They have been described [[Put a Bow On Her Head|elsewhere]] as "an entire Genus of [[Wholesome Crossdresser
** The huia, a strange bird native to New Zealand which was driven extinct by overhunting, had an entirely unique form of sexual dimorphism. The male and female had the same feather markings, but their beaks were shaped very differently. They had separate niches and ate in different ways: claims that they had to work as a team to eat are based on a misunderstanding.
** For birds of prey size dimorphism is common: since females need to lay eggs and sit on them for a while, they are larger. Often it's much more pronounced, especially among the raptors who mainly eat other birds<ref>e.g. adult Eurasian sparrowhawk males are 29-34 cm long, with 59-64 cm wingspan, females 35-41 cm long, with 67-80 cm wingspan: the size ranges don't overlap</ref>. The reason is that sufficient size disparity makes males and females more fit to hunt different species, and if they don't compete for food, they can share the territory without either depleting it or extending more than necessary. Smaller size is more of an advantage when chasing very fast and/or agile prey, while the larger female can catch and carry larger prey, and have plenty to feed her chicks.
* Snakes are very rarely dimorphic, but some species of constrictors have a similar size discrepancy to birds of prey, for similar reasons.
* Inversion: Female Spotted Hyenas have identical-looking genitals to males, with a "pseudopenis" and "pseudo-scrotum".
* Very common among arthropods:
** Spiders are infamous for examples of extreme dimorphism between the sexes. There is a tendency of the males to evolve into wanderers, spending their lives looking for more sedentary, web-bound females, resulting in them evolving to very different lifestyle requirements. For instance, in [
*** Male Salticids (jumping spiders) are often brightly colored and have very large "boxing glove" pedipalps in front, while females are brown or gray with small palps (P. audax, a common lab spider, is an exception to the color rule). Probably because Salticid females are very aggressive hunters, some species' males do elaborate (and hilarious) dances to increase the probability that females will recognize them as a mate rather than a snack.
*** In some species, the male will, after starting the process of sperm transfer (which is typically done with a pair of LEGS, spiders are weird), rotate their abdomen up toward the female's head and try to get her to EAT HIM. This is advantageous for the male, because it will provide her with valuable nutrition when she's finishing up the eggs he's fertilizing and putting them in their egg case. Given the longevity of these male spiders, and the travel time to the next female, he's extremely unlikely to ever encounter a second female anyway.
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** Bagworm moths. The females are wingless, eyeless, near-legless breeding machines. The male moth mates with the female while she is still in the cocoon, and in some species, particularly the [[One-Gender Race|asexually-reproducing ones]], the young hatch out of the female ''Alien'' style.
** [[Bee People|Eusocial]] insects have sexual ''tri''morphism, the reproducing females look different than the Worker females, which look different that the males.
***
** The adult females of some species of firefly are virtually indistinguishable from the larvae (i.e., grubs), while only the males are the elongated beetles we all know and love.
** Siafu/Driver Ants. The females are not small for ant standards (being about an inch long). The male is about the size of a large sausage, hence the term "sausage fly" for him. The "sausage" part is a bloated abdomen that makes them look like very obese dragonflies. This abdomen? Contains sperm. [[It Gets Worse]]. When they breed the females release a pheromone that attracts the male, who usually have nothing to do with the females (for good reason!). The females chew off all his limbs. Then they rip open his belly and impregnate themselves with the contents while the male lies dying.
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* Primates:
** Humans' sexual dimorphism isn't as great as that of our near relatives. Gorilla and orangutan males are enormous compared to the females, while male and female gibbons sport different colors of fur, plus an inflatable throat pouch for males of some species. It's even more extreme in the larger monkeys, such as baboons, mandrills, or proboscis monkeys.
** [[
** Also, human male penises are [[Gag Penis|gigantic]] compared to other primates (yes, even your [[Teeny Weenie]] is massive compared to a gorilla's), leading some to believe that before the advent of clothing they, like human breasts now, served as a [[Bigger Is Better in Bed|sexual display]] in addition to their other functions.
** The recently discovered fossil of an adult male ''Australopithecus afarensis'' revealed him to have been five to five-and-a-half feet tall. Compared to his female conspecific Lucy, at three-and-a-half feet, this is quite a substantial size difference between sexes, even if it's assumed he was tall and Lucy was short for their species.
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