Mix-and-Match Critters: Difference between revisions
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* [[Our Gryphons Are Different]] - Lion-bird mix
* [[Our Mermaids Are Different]] - Human-fish mix
* [[Basilitrice]]: Snake-chicken mix, sometimes with toad added.
{{examples}}
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== Comic Books ==
* Five words: [https://web.archive.org/web/20100823015228/http://superdickery.com/index.php?view=article&catid=29%3Aconfounding-comic-covers-index&id=1262%3Athe-animal-vegetable-mineral-menace&option=com_content&Itemid=51 The Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man]. Technically, he was a ridiculously overpowered [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|Shapeshifter]]. [[This Is Your Premise on Drugs|Who liked turning into mix-and-match critters. A ''lot''.]]
* [[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.
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== Literature ==
* ''[[Discworld]]'';
** In the
*** Making for "a wossname total of three homicidal maniacs."
** Discworld also has the chimera in ''[[
** From ''[[Going Postal]]'': It was said that there was one horse in Ankh-Morpork that had a longitudinal seam from head to tail, being sewn together from what was left of two horses that had been involved in a particularly nasty accident.
** 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.
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** 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.
** In the original boxed sets, gnolls were stated to be crosses of gnomes and trolls; that was later [[Retcon]]ed out, with gnolls presented as their own species of [[Beast Man|Beast Men]].
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' uses a lot of the same Mix-and-Match Critters as does Dungeons and Dragons (above), but outdid themselves in the ''Alliances'' set, with the [https://web.archive.org/web/20080504114018/http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=3227 Phelddagrif]—a winged hippo with a lot of weird abilities. They later came out with [
** 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.
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* 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.
* Looking closer at a [https://web.archive.org/web/20120404123911/http://blog.webosaurs.com/2010/11/18/weekly-dino-fact-mighty-mosasaur/ mososaur], this troper thinks someone finally managed to take the badass qualities of a shark and a crocodile and combine into one badass dominant marine predator of the Cretacious period.
* [[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.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]
[[Category:Animal Tropes]]
[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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