Mix-and-Match Critters: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you,''

''Maybe you don't like monsters so much.''

''Maybe I used too many monkeys.''

 

A common way of making monsters or fantastic creatures is to simply take existing animals and combine their parts. For instance, the Chimera (lion head, goat body, snake tail) or the [[Minotaur]] ([[Horned Humanoid|bull head]], human body—a [[Half-Human Hybrid]]). Also common is to simply take an existing animal and vary it a simple way -- [[Pegasus]] is a horse, but with wings, hippocampi have the heads and front bodies of horses but the tails of fish, etc.

* [[Our Gryphons Are Different]] - Lion-bird mix

* [[Our Mermaids Are Different]] - Human-fish mix

 

{{examples}}

 

* The world of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' is populated with creatures ranging from the apparently delicious Molepig, to the truly bizarre [http://www.epicwin.org/img/misc/grapehippo.jpg Grapehippo]. The Grapehippo is the director's favorite character.

* The Chimera Ants in ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'' are like this, as the queen can spawn soldier/grunts with traits from any creature she has consumed. And by the end of the arc, she has consumed pretty much an entire country's worth of animal life, and it's almost impossible to tell just how much of what creature went into her final creations. [[Hunter X Hunter]] also has naturally-occurring fox-bears and spider-eagles.

** [[Fridge Brilliance|Freshwater spring, saltwater sealife]].

* Plenty of ''[[Berserk]]'''s Apostles and other monsters can be described as these, ranging from Zodd (Bull/tiger/ape) to the ogres (giant humanoids with sperm whale snouts and elephant tusks) to the trolls (Rat/monkey/pig). Then there's the Pisacha, they look like those sea monsters from old sea maps, with elephant trunks, made by mutating a whale.

* ''[[Inuyasha]]'' is practically MADE of this trope; most of the [[Airborne Mook|low-level demons]] are serpents or arthropods.

* ''[[Beast Wars]]'', ''[[Beast Wars II]]'', and ''[[Beast Wars Neo]]'' features several mix/hybrid critters as alt-modes.

 

== Comic Books ==

* [[The DCU]] character B'wana Beast's power is to ''make'' these from two animals.

* [[Marsupilami]], from ''[[Spirou and Fantasio]]'' and the eponymous title, are vaguely monkey-like creatures, oviparous but with a belly button, with a leopard coat and the occasional melanistic individual.

 

 

 

 

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' has a few. Most notably Hutts, who are slugs with small arms. Also Toydarians, who look like giant mosquitos...sort of. And Jar Jar is a frog with eyestalks.

 

 

== Literature ==

** And in ''The New Discworld Companion'', it's mentioned that many of the animals kept at the College of Heralds are descended from previous generations of heraldic models, who'd gotten rather friendly with one another. And it shows.

* In Mary Stanton's novels, Anor, a demon in horse mythology, is a red horse with feline eyes, claws, and fangs, and an appetite for red meat.

* ''The Wingdingdilly'', which is about a dog that was turned into a chimera as a result of a magic spell cast upon him by a witch.

* The [[Dr. Seuss]] book ''Horton Hatches the Egg'' ends with the egg [[Horton Hears a Who!|Horton the Elephant]] was taking care of [[Whale Egg|hatching into a tiny elephant with wings]].

 

 

* [[The Jersey Devil]].

* The [[Ars Goetia]] portrays many of the demons bound by Ham and Solomon as manifesting in this way. Examples are Zagan and Haagenti (gryphon-winged bulls...although how you're supposed to tell those are gryphon wings and not eagle wings [[Fridge Logic|is anyone's guess]]), Marchosias (she-wolf with a snake's tail and gryphon wings), and Ipos (lion with a goose's feet and head and a hare's tail).

* The worst of all? The Tarasque. It had the head of a lion, the body of a bull, the shell of a tortoise covered in spikes, six bear legs, and the tail of a serpent with a fish's fin. Doesn't much look like its [[Dungeons & Dragons|D&D]] counterpart.

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** A few more examples: some were specifically stated to be the result of wizard experiments, some had no origin given.

*** Chimera (1/3 red dragon, 1/3 lion and 1/3 giant goat... yeah, you heard me)

*** Griffon (half lion, half eagle)

*** Hippogriff (half horse, half eagle)

** That's not the worst of it. One [http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?articleid=18739 article] on this in [[Dragon (magazine)]] has armadillephant, dragonfly turtle, duckbunny, moat cat (newt+puma), spider-horse, and venom dog (mastiff+scorpion). Why ''duckbunny''? Just because it's a good idea to practice with something less deadly than owlbears.

*** Possibly it's a reference to an optical illusion (see [[Real Life]] above).

** The cavalcade of "Half-Something" templates combined with the weird sense of humor gamers tend to have ensures that whatever can be spawned with D&D 3+ tools ''will'' be spawned. Whatever ''cannot'' be spawned, thanks to the stated rules, will be spawned anyway—but put in separate cage with the disclaimer "[http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20060407a it cannot be made because of rules, but if it could, it would be like that]". The clear implication being that nothing but limitations in rules prevents things like the Half-Dragon Werewolf, the Ooze Vampire, or the Angel/Demon.

** A [[Prestige Class]], the Master Transmogrifier in 3.5 can do this, combining the traits of at least two creatures when using a polymorph or shapechange spell, such as combining a squid's tentacles with a dragon.

** The Phelddagrif, mind, is a ''deliberate'' in-joke. Its name is an anagram of {{spoiler|'Garfield, Ph. D.' after the creator of Magic}}. That said, Magic has played with the 'build your own creature from individual parts' concept from time to time—the chimeras from ''Visions'' come to mind, for one.

*** This is actually the point of auras and equipment, but auras have the unfortunate card disadvantage, in that, yes, putting Holy Strength on your Benalish Hero takes its toughness up to three, but a Lightning Bolt (which does three damage) will kill it and your Holy Strength, whereas if you'd played (say) another creature, you'd still have a creature.

* The ''Alien Wars'' supplement for 5th edition [[Hero System]] gives us the Xenovores, originally created via genetic manipulation to survive a nuclear holocaust no matter what. If they encounter a new race that has a potentially useful trait, expect a new subrace of Xenovores to show up soon with that trait.

* The tizn'ts of [[Low Life]] are sentient mashups of... pretty much anything. The race's name comes from an attempt to categorize them, as in: "Tizn't a Bodul, tizn't a Horc, tizn't a toy car, tizn't a rubber ducky, tizn't a..."

 

== Toys ==

* Disney's ''[[The Wuzzles]]'', somehow making insect/mammal creatures cute and cuddly, rather than an unholy vision from H.R. Giger's nightmares.

* 'Magna Morph' toys are animals made of separate body parts held together by magnets, and so can be disassembled and reassembled into interesting combinations. [[Stephen Colbert]] pointed out that the set includes a [[Everything's Worse with Bears|grizzly bear]] and a [[Eagle Land|bald eagle]], which means it's theoretically possible to create a ''Greagle'' - "Aah! Kill it! Kill it!"

** Somehow they combined a [[Giant Flyer|Pteranodon]] with an ''[[Mighty Glacier|Ankylosaurus]]'' and made it '''awesome'''. Other creatures in the series include:

*** Amargospinus - (''Amargasaurus'' + ''Spinosaurus'')

*** Tanaconda (''Tanystropheus'' + anaconda)

*** Velociraptoryx (''Velociraptor'' + ''Archaeopteryx'')" (Huh. [[wikipedia:Rahonavis|You don't say...]])

** Finally, someone was nice enough to devote [http://iririv.deviantart.com/art/Chaos-effect-collection-144644233 a deviantART page] to the overlooked toy series.

* ''[[Bionicle]]'' had the Rahi Nui, a critter who we only know by its description, since it was never released as a toy. Nevertheless, the animals that make it up were available at one time, so we can guess what it might look like: its head is that of a Kane-Ra bull, it has the body and back legs of a Muaka tiger ([[Fridge Logic|which doesn't actually have back legs]]), the powerful arms of a Tarakava lizard, the wings of a Nui-Rama wasp and the stinger tail of a Nui-Jaga scorpion.

** In a later strip, Roy questions the existence of a [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying|brontosaurus]], and is told that if gryphons can exist, why not an apatosaurus with the head of a camarasaurus?

* ''[[Beyond the Canopy]]'' has spider crabs which (unlike [[Real Life]] spider crabs) are giant spiders with crab claws. There's also a brief appearance by deer that have small trees in place of antlers.

* ''[[Dissonance]]'' takes a relatively realistic approach to this—Pandora has traits of three different kinds of caniform, in addition to traits not typically found in that suborder, but it's definitely its own creature rather than a mix of the others. The protagonists are currently clueless as to what it could have evolved from (having dismissed genetic engineering, and only joked about aliens.)

 

* In a somewhat similar vein to the above example, the [[Furry Fandom]] roleplay City of Unity has this as a major plot point; As maintained by the [[People's Republic of Tyranny|Orwellian]] government, Hybrids, or Uni-Class, (50/50 mix of two species) are held as the next step in evolution over the purebred Outer Class. (single species)

* [http://humandescent.deviantart.com/ HumanDescent] on deviantart.com loves doing digital manipulations of this nature.

* [[Rather Good]] Flash animation [http://www.rathergood.com/zoology "Zoology Dragon"] that is about a Dragon that combines animals... Into cubes.

* A few more gems from [[Deviant ART]]:

** [http://fav.me/d11vggc Humming-Gryphon]

** [http://youkaiyume.deviantart.com/art/Kanga-Lion-48360022 Kanga-lion]

** [http://adonihs.deviantart.com/art/Splice-Contest-BULL-SHARK-165048157 Bulldog-Shark]

** [http://fav.me/dz9wsr The mighty Llamalion!]

** [http://fav.me/d1wbqqb The Dogbunnyfroglemur]

** [http://fav.me/d1755r6 The magnificent Elephenguin]!

** The fearsomeness on legs [http://fav.me/d1vbsi7 Antshark]

** [http://fav.me/d2zzfy1 Crocoraffe (crocodile/giraffe)]

** [http://fav.me/dh7sp9 The ever-popular Butterfrog]

** [http://fav.me/d1jbsw7 Macadillo]

** [http://fav.me/d307e6m Pandafox]

** [http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/210/6/1/Crux_fanart_by_WhiteRoo.jpg Cruxes] are a somewhat less straightforward example, though still considered "hybrids".

*** And on the [http://fav.me/d2qukn9 Duckbunny]...

** What little girl wouldn't want a [http://fav.me/d1qa846 My Little Caterpony]?

** And the glorious [http://fav.me/d2vw0wi Pavotaur]!

** And the magnificent [http://fav.me/d3e3hro Sheenicorn]!

* Some [[UniCreatures]] are hybrids, including Capricious (goat/dragon,) Felic ("cowbunnyhorse") and Diani (deer/wolf.)

* The [[SCP Foundation]] has carefully secured [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-889 this former barn]. It can even create mix-and-match ''plant life''.

* Several in ''[[Dark Souls]]'', such as the Catbear.

* The [[Memetic Mutation|Bearsharktopus]].

 

== Western Animation ==

** Saber-tooth Moose-Lion: But the baby is so cute!

** Sparrowkeet: Another bad pun.

*** Except, you know, [[Captain Obvious|outside in the daylight]].

** Dragon-moose: Seen drawing a cart in "The Runaway".

** Turtle-ducks: Young Zuko is seen feeding a mother turtle-duck and her babies with his mother. Secretly, they are his favorite animals.

** [[wikipedia:Notosuchia|Anatosuchus]], a small extinct crocodile with an unusually broad snout has since, rather cheekily, been nicknamed the "Crocoduck".

** Also cheekily, the gag Golden Crocoduck Award is now granted to whichever creationist whackjob is caught on film making the year's stupidest argument against evolution.

* Sheep-goat chimeras can actually live and they indeed look like both sheep and goat.

** And camel-llamas (camas)

* According to a theory by one philosopher of ancient Greece, all animal parts appeared independently and were combined in different possible ways to form whole creatures, but natural selection pruned out all the silly combinations.

** Well, ''most'' of the silly combinations.

* The Okapi; one of the few remaining giraffes that doesn't look like the tall blondes one thinksof when one hears the word. It has the body of a horse, the legs of a zebra, and the horns of a giraffe...

** Speaking of Zebras, lets talk about Equines. Most people are familiar with what you get when a donkey and horse mate, [[wikipedia:Mule|a mule]]. But what happens when you cross-breed a Zebra with a horse or a donkey? You get a [[wikipedia:Zebroid|Zorse]] or [[wikipedia:Zebroid|Zedonk]] respectively.

* The Blind Men and Elephant story from India, where a group of blind men mistook each part of an elephant they touched as belonging to separate things (body is a wall, tusks are a spear, trunk is a snake, ear is a fan, tail is a rope).

* One well-known optical illusion depicts a creature that alternately resembles a duck or a rabbit, depending on whether you think of the long, paired structures on its head as a bill or as ears.

* [[wikipedia:Chalicothere|Chalicotheres]] looked like a pumped up-cross between a horse and a gorilla. Strangely, its closest relatives are the tapir and rhino.

* The extinct glyptodont species, [http://iririv.deviantart.com/art/Doedicurus-clavicaudatus-133480077 Doedicurus clavicaudatus] look like if someone took an ankylosaurus and an armadillo (already two awesome animals by themselves) and combined them into an even more awesome one.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]

[[Category:Animal Tropes]]

[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]