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{{trope}}
The daughter trope of [[Our Monsters Are Different]] and [[Call a Rabbit
So your characters are on an adventure in a [[Magical Land]], and they naturally run into a mythical creature. Said creature is then identified in the text or dialogue by the name of a similar (or not) mythical being or fantasy creature. Cue a moment of confusion for the viewer.
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Compare [[Istanbul Not Constantinople]], which is similar but for place names.
When a completely fantastical character is named after a commonly-known creature, see [[Call a Smeerp
{{examples}}
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* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' there's an in-story example when the group encounters a monstrous dog creature with multiple heads. Nodoka, being the high-fantasy book fan, identifies it as Orthrus by its snake-head tails. But at the same time, it has three heads total like Cerberus (whereas Orthrus had two), so she can't really identify it as anything. {{spoiler|This probably serves as a [[Chekhov's Gun]] because the person who conjured it (it was actually an illusion) was just a child with likely not much knowledge on mystical consistency}}. Note that in some myths, Cerberus is depicted with a snake tail or with snakes on his back.
** Later on, Yue and her classmates fight against a creature called a "Griffin Dragon". The only thing about it that was Dragon-like was a scaly tail and a pair of horns. Oh, and the [[Breath Weapon]].
* ''[[
* [[Yu-Gi-Oh!|The Winged Dragon of Ra]] looks more like a griffin or a rukh.
* Gryphon from ''[[Bakugan]]'' is actually portrayed as a winged, three-headed monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail instead of a monster with a bird's head and wings and a lion's body.
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== Literature ==
* In [[E. Nesbit]]'s ''The Book Of Beasts'', the hero must summon a creature identified as a hippogriff to save his city from a dragon. The creature that appears is what most people would identify as a pegasus, a winged horse. To be fair, you can't say that a hippogriff ''isn't'' a winged horse (or that a pegasus isn't technically [[Mix-and-Match Critters|part horse, part bird]] for that matter). It's also possible that Nesbit figured that the word pegasus must only refer to ''[[A Kind of One|the]]'' Pegasus; this was ages before [[My Little Pony]] remember.
** Actually Pliny the Elder mentioned Pegasi living in Aegypt. So the idea of numbers of Winged Horses existing is [[Older Than Print]].
* An older example is Frank Stockton's short story, ''The Griffin and the Minor Canon'' from 1885, in which the eponymous monster -- by its description -- is [[Our Gryphons Are Different|clearly a dragon]]. The story might actually be considered a [[Lampshade Hanging]] on this trope, as the dragon sees a statue of a griffin and assumes that (since it also has four legs, wings, ''etc''.) he must be of the same species and that "griffin" is what humans call him. Got all that?
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** Sir [[wikipedia:Arthur Charles Fox-Davies|Arthur Charles Fox-Davies]] warns against confusing the two in his ''A Complete Guide to Heraldry'', so it was apparently a common Victorian mistake.
* One of the stranger examples is in the book ''Thorn Ogres of Hagwood''. A character wanders into the action about halfway through the story. He is a short humanoid with a big, big beard and he carries a lot of different tools and has a great talent for metalwork. He is [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|identified as a dwa...]] no, wait, he is a Pooka. [[Trickster Mentor|Pookas]] technically can [[A Form You Are Comfortable With|appear as dwarves]] but, as you may recall from ''[[Harvey]]'', they also tend to be a lot weirder.
** Similarly, in ''[[
*** The original pooka was known for transforming into a large black horse that would give anyone foolish enough to mount it a terrifying ride, which is probably the origin for that bit of lore.
* Similarly, mythical Veela are closer to Sirens, not the Succubi in the ''[[Harry Potter (
** Another Potter example is boggarts, which are not shapeshifters in English lore.
* [[
** It is even older - in the old North Germanic languages, "orm" could mean a snake, a worm or a dragon by modern English terms.
* Although she never appears in the stories in person, it's made pretty clear that [[
* In David Weber's ''[[
* [[
* There are carnivorous "Alicorns" (also called "One-Horns", but guess what unicorn means) in the ''Elvenbane'' series as well. Traditionally, this word refers to either [[Winged Unicorn|winged unicorns]] or the horn of a unicorn, although it's likely a result of centuries of [[Recursive Translation]] from English <-> French (unicorn -> ''une icorne'' -> ''l'icorne'' -> a licorn -> alicorn).
** Some of the main characters are shapeshifting superintelligent dragons who are, in some details, [[Our Dragons Are Different|quite different]].
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* Lamia in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' have a confusing history due to Lamia's own historically confusing mythology as either a [[Snake People|snake woman]], a [[Hermaphrodite|hermaphroditic]] [[Wicked Witch|hag]], or as a [[Mix-and-Match Critters|four-legged beast with a woman's head & breasts]]. All editions on D&D up until 3rd have used the last one as inspiration for a lion-centaur monster which ''somewhat'' follows it. However, 4th edition just decides to chuck all mythology out the window and attach the name to a swarm of insects that crawl over the skeleton of a dead humanoid and use spells to disguise themselves as people.
* At least one article in ''Dragon'' magazine has suggested that game masters use this trope in-game to screw with their players' expectations, perhaps justifying it as disinformation spread by [[Genre Savvy]] monsters.
* ''[[
* ''[[Magic:
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** The Gorgon/catoblepas issue (see Tabletop Games, above) is also present in ''Aria''. Likewise, one of the most iconic [[Goddamn Bats]] of the entire series is the Medusa Head, which is very different from the other gorgons in the game.
* The Kraken in ''[[City of Heroes]]'' is a giant blob monster that walks on two legs and resides in the [[Scrappy Level|scrappy zone]] of Perez Park and is a member of the villain group, the Hydra, which are all human-sized blobs. Except ''the'' Hydra, which is another humongous blob with tentacles that stretch all over the city. None of which ought to be confused with Lusca, the giant octopus which terrorizes Independence Port.
* In a inversion of [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons]], ''[[
* ''Fallout'' has Centaurs, mutated creatures which look like... Well, [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Centaur#Variations see for yourself.]
* ''[[
** These are justified, in that Altaria is meant to be a Peng (huge dragon-like bird) from Chinese mythology and Flygon is an adult antlion, which look like dragonflies and have the nickname "sand dragon", so Flygon's dragon typing is a pun. Charizard is not a dragon only because in the first generation it would be completely overpowered to have a dragon type starter. Gyarados is also not a dragon for the same reason: with their type combos, ice wouldn't be super effective on them like it is on the actual dragon-type Dragonite, and the only dragon type move of the generation was Dragon Rage, which did fixed damage.
** Vibrava, which evolves into Flygon, is even more insectoid. Bagon and Shelgon aren't dragonlike either, though their final form Salamence is. Kingdra is based on a creature called a weedy sea dragon. Dialga isn't much like a dragon, though Palkia has more similarity to the European dragon, and Giratina's Origin Forme bears its resemblance to the Chinese dragon. Really, considering that most of the types don't refer to specific lifeforms (dragon being joined by bug and ghost in doing so), it's not surprising.
* ''[[
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
** According to one interpretation (which happens to be shared by series creator Shigeru Miyamoto) each ''Zelda'' title is a differently corrupted version of the same core story rather than an entirely new chapter in Hyrule's history, a notion which the unusual in-universe use of this trope would appear to support.
* In Cornish folklore, a spriggan is a kind of goblin that can grow to giant size. In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'', it's basically a dryad.
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== Webcomics ==
* ''[[
** While we're at it, the trolls are are a race of [[Cute Monster Girl|Cute Monster People]] whose infant forms are reminiscent of [[Bizarre Alien Biology|insects]] and whose life cycle and physiology is [[Expospeak Gag|just a tad]] [[Art Major Biology|strange]]. While not a full example - [[All Trolls Are Different|myths about trolls rarely agree on anything]] - the ''Homestuck'' depiction was intended to be rooted more in the idea of [[Troll|internet trolls]] (that's all the characters were before [[Andrew Hussie]] decided to make them relevant to the plot), and as such are certainly divorced from the traditional brutish, man-eating monsters that live under bridges.
* Brooke from ''[[Eerie Cuties]]'' and her people are called "melusines," even though traditionally, "Melusine" was a specific individual - what she was was a "nixie." It would be like calling gorgons "medusas." [[Oh, Wait!]], [[Dungeons and Dragons
== Western Animation ==
* [[Kraken and Leviathan|The Leviathan]] from ''[[Atlantis:
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