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{{trope}}
[[File:same_speciessame species.jpg|link=Green Lantern|frame|They're the same species? You're kidding, right?]]
 
 
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== Comics ==
* [[Green Lantern|The Zamarons and The Guardians of the Universe]]. The [http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/File:Zamarons_01.jpg Zamarons] are the female member of the race, and they look like human women. The [[wikipedia:File:Guardians by Igle.jpg|Guardians]] look like blue midget old men with white hair. They used to be identical, but the two races separated and continued to evolve ([[Lamarck Was Right|without reproducing....]]) into their present form. The Zamarons were later [[Retcon|retconnedretcon]]ned to have always [[wikipedia:File:Zamaron.jpg|been blue skinned, black eyed, hairless and almost noseless]] (think tall, blue, female [[The Greys|Roswell Greys]]). And they are still almost three times the size of the Guardians, so the trope still applies since the two are either the same species or offshoots of the same species, [[Depending on the Writer]].
** 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]]'', Martian females are all gorgeous, buxom, four-armed women, and the males are tiny, squat, furry, mostly shapeless (and, incidentally, ''non-sapient'') hexapods with disproportionately large sex organs.
** 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|Cute Monster Girls]]s with [[Cute Little Fangs|cute little]] ''[[Cute Little Fangs|shark teeth]]'' and long tufted prehensile tails. We never actually see a male troll... but a human character who [[Take Our Word for It|has]] infers that humans must not look dimorphic at ''all'' to trolls. (She's wrong; the huldra is fully aware that she's female and ''still'' wants to marry her. [[Les Yay|With all]] that [[Girls Love|that implies]].)
* 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|Starfish Aliens]]s.
* 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 (comics)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]'', male Dryads look like large masculine-seeming humanoids made of stone. In some continuities, female Dryads look like large masculine-seeming humanoids made of crystal. (In others they look like the male dryads with narrower waists and [[Non-Mammal Mammaries]].)
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** 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 [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shado_Vao Shado Vao], shows them to be good looking.
**** Unless of course it's Darth Talon, because [[Evil Is Sexy]]. Only for females, though. Which brings us full circle back to the [[Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism|dimorphism trope]].
* The novelization of ''[[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home|Star Trek IV the Voyage Home]]'' would have you believe that [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Saratoga_helmsman,_2286.jpg this] is a male [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/2/26/Ilia.jpg Deltan]. No other source corroborates this, and it can be assumed to be an error.
** 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.
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* The Cygnans in the novel ''The Jupiter Theft'' had human-sized females and insect-like parasitic males that were permanently attached to the females.
* ''[[Ringworld]]'': The Kzinti are [[Beast Man|catlike people]], and while the males are of humanlike intelligence, the females are not. The Puppeteers, who are already fairly strange looking, have three "sexes", one of which is non-sentient, technically a ''different species'', and serves as a host for a the embryo created by the two others.
** However, ancient Kzinti females ''were'' entirely sentient -- theirsentient—their current state is the result of intentional breeding for unintelligent women, with the help of genetic engineering technology. That's what happens when you uplift a bronze age species.
*** 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 lines-- hystericallines—hysterical, dangerously sharp, and not too bright. (The blatant sexism and classism is a satire of the attitudes that people actually had when it was written, as explained in a foreword added by Abbot when people missed this.) Other details of their physiology, including how they reproduce, are never explained.
** 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|other]] [[Bas-Lag Cycle|Bas-Lag]] [[Iron Council|novels]] are an insect-like race with small non-sentient males and females that resemble red-skinned human women with a similar type of insect ''forming their heads''.
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*** 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 insect-like society depicted in ''Hellstrom's Hive'' had breeding-machine females not conceptually unlike the piggies.
* The Tralfamadorians from [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]]'' claim that humans have seven sexes, cases of [[Unreliable Narrator]] notwithstanding--likelynotwithstanding—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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** 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 Dragons]]'' monsters are screwed up.
*** And very likely going extinct, if gynosphinxes aren't having enough daughters to replace themselves each generation.
** There are also medusae--completemedusae—complete with snake hair and petrifying gaze--andgaze—and maedars--whichmaedars—which look more-or-less like bald human men--whichmen—which are the male and female of the same species. Since 4th Edition this dichotomy in dimorphism has lessened; while male medusas are still bald (and have a gaze that poisons anyone that it falls upon rather than a petrifying gaze) they are quite obviously recognizable as members of the same species as the females.
* 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.
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== 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 [[Cyborg|cyborgscyborg]]s and they use [[Time Travel]] as their weapon of choice? [[Starfish Aliens]] indeed.
* In ''[[Pokémon]]'', there are a number of species that are gender exclusive (Jynx, for example, is only female). But some of these Pokémon are considered the opposite sex of the same species. The Nidoran pairs come to mind, familiar to most people, but Tauros found his female counterpart in Miltank, and later generations continued the trend. This might be [[Gender Equals Breed]], though.
** It's debated whether or not Miltank and Tauros are opposite genders of the same species--unlikespecies—unlike Volbeat/Illumise and the Nidoran family, Miltank eggs can never hatch into Tauros.
** 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.
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* Similar to Darkstakers above, the ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games have both Succubi and Incubi as [[Mons|recrutable demons]]. Succubi (and the related Lilim) resemble attractive women in skimpy clothes with wings; Incubi are small, hideous imps with [[Gag Penis|a large growth (even longer than their bodies!) coming from their crotch]].
* [[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|Cute Monster Girls]]s (although not all of them are); males have ''huge'' tusks, beak-like noses, and would be [[One Head Taller|at least a foot taller]] if it weren't for a permanent slouch.
*** 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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* 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 ''[[Dofus]]'' and ''[[Wakfu]]'' have long green hair all over their face, whereas the women appear more normal. Much more blatant with male Sram from ''Dofus'', who look like skeletons, while the females look completely normal.
* 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 problem-- tellingproblem—telling them apart from the ''mermen'' can be quite difficult for outsiders. All merfolk look pretty much the same and there's no external dimorphism between sexes, so if a Human man mistakes a Merman for a Mermaid, you can expect a [[Squick|squickysquick]]y situation.
* [[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 short -- theyshort—they are dwarves after all, while females are quintessential loli girls. [[Unfortunate Implications]] galore.
* 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 [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 [[Retcon|retconnedretcon]]ned into 1.
 
 
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** Maybe Al's just ugly.
* "The People" in ''[[Digger]]'' are a race of bipedal, sentient Spotted Hyenas. They most certainly share the [[wikipedia:Spotted Hyena#Reproduction and development|real life sexual dimorphism of Spotted Hyenas]], and their culture revolves around it: the girls are [[Large and In Charge]], but have horrific infant mortality rates.
** In particular, firstborn children are considered to "belong to the goddess" -- like—like actual hyenas, the first pregnancy is almost always fatal to the child. A firstborn who survives is seen as an omen and a lucky charm, a blessed person who was ''given back'' by their deity.
** 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.
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== Western Animation ==
* Truly extreme ''[[Monster Buster Club]]'' example: Grampa Smith, in his true form, looks like a sort of blue-skinned fish-fly thing with four limbs. Cathy's true form, on the other hand, has six tentacle-like limbs, white skin with pink spots, three crests on her head, and a squirrel-like tail. This is assuming that Grampa Smith and Cathy belong to the same species; Cathy may well be adopted, seeing that we never hear anything about her birth parents. Or Grandpa Smith is just what happens when his species gets old.
* ''[[Storm Hawks]]''--Subverted—Subverted in the case of the Wallop species. As Finn says "they all look like dudes from behind"
* 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 ''[[Wakfu]]'', all male Sadida have their entire head, including the face, covered by green hair--andhair—and this is true for the juveniles too. The females also have green hair, but their faces are devoid of pilosity.
* 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 [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100421171717/fairlyoddparents/en/images/7/70/Bodacians.png Boudacians] (Princess Mandie's species) from ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]''.
* In ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'', Female Dathomirians, which are a hybrid between Zabrak and humans, have chalk-white skin and bald heads. Male Dathomirians, however, resemble their Zabrak forefathers (like Darth Maul) with red or gold skin and horns.
* In ''[[Adventure Time]]'', in the episode "Her Parents" the parents of Lady Rainicorn visit Jake, and we discover that the male Rainicorns are far shorter than the female ones. And they eat human flesh.
* 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 epilogue--aepilogue—a litter of kitten-girls and puppy-boys. This could, of course, be [[Gender Equals Breed]], but this trope is also a possible explanation.
* 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 eyelids -- whileeyelids—while his sister Zair has light red skin, dark red hair, [[Animal Eyes|catlike eyes]], and a [[Rubber Forehead Aliens|strangely familiar]] patch of bumps on her forehead.
 
 
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** 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 sense -- thesense—the female has to carry eggs, so a larger body is needed. Males can get away with being smaller (and thus needing less food) because birds generally don't physically fight except in extreme circumstances -- itcircumstances—it's too easy to hurt a wing and be crippled. Similarly, males normally are bright and females drab so that a nesting female is hard to spot but a displaying male easy to find. (There is also a theory that some species, like peacocks, are essentially advertising their fitness as a mate by showing off a major handicap -- ahandicap—a big tail says "Hey, I can walk around with ''this'' strapped to my butt and ''still'' avoid predators! I'm an awesome provider!") The purpose of the size difference in male and female birds of prey is also to discourage competition for food between a mating pair. The larger female can catch large prey (and have plenty to feed her chicks) without worrying about the small male getting in her way.
** 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|Wholesome Crossdressers]]s."
** 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.
* Snakes are very rarely dimorphic, but some species of constrictors have a similar size discrepancy to birds of prey, for similar reasons.
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