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''Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?"''|'''[[Jonathan Coulton]]''', "Skullcrusher Mountain"}}
 
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.
 
Compare [[Biological Mashup]], which is when two characters are combined after the fact; [[Mix and Match Critters]] are supposed to look like that. [[Mix and Match Critters]] may be the result of [[Hot Skitty On Wailord Action]]. If both creatures are already mythological/magical/whatever and get mixed, they become a [[Hybrid Monster]]. Application of the principle to humans may count as [[Bio Augmentation]], see also [[Mix and Match Man]].
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* [[Our Gryphons Are Different]] - Lion-bird mix
* [[Our Mermaids Are Different]] - Human-fish mix
{{examples|Examples}}
 
== Anime ==
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* [[Fullmetal Alchemist]] has chimeras, which are regular animals alchemically combined. And sometimes they [[Talking Animal]].
** {{spoiler|[[It Got Worse]]: [[Complete Monster|That human in question is the alchemist's daughter!]]}}
* ''[[Jo JosJo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure]]'', Dio Brando loves to make creatures zombies and then fusing their parts.
* Chimairamon of ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'' is based on the mythical chimera, and it shows. Several other species fall under this on a less extreme scale, with other obvious ones generally the product of a [[Fusion Dance]].
* All the ''[[Tenchi Muyo]]'' series and spinoffs contain Ryo-Ohki, a cat-rabbit hybrid, often referred to as a "cabbit". ''[[Tenchi Muyo GXP]]'' also contains a second cabbit, named Fuku. ''[[Alternate Universe|Tenchi Universe]]'' has Ken-Ohki, a male cabbit who ends up as Ryo-Ohki's boyfriend.
* In ''[[Ranma One Half]]'', Jusenkyo has a spring called "Niuhomanmaolenniichuan" ([[Spell My Name With an "S"|or variations thereof]]), which translates as "Spring of Drowned Yeti Riding Ox While Carrying Crane And Eel" and is [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin]]. Anyone who falls into this spring gains an [[One -Winged Angel|alternate form]] that is considered exceptionally formidable. In essence, it's a [[Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever|giant]] minotaur (legs and head of an ox, body and arms of a yeti) with an eel growing from its spine to form a tail and a tiny set of crane wings sprouting from its shoulders. It's [[Super Strength|inhumanly strong]], [[Lightning Bruiser|surprisingly quick]], [[Made of Iron|massively tough]], and capable of flight. Needless to say, the one character who has this spring considers himself [[Cursed With Awesome]] and has no desire to remove it. In fact, possibly because this form was created by such a mixed up spring, he later manages to assimilate a Spring of Drowned Octopus curse, giving himself [[Combat Tentacles]] and the ability to spray ink from his fingers. ([[Fridge Logic|Though it still begs the question of how these springs can exist, considering the inherent difficulty in drowning an octopus and/or an eel]].)
** [[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.
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* [[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.
* Also from [[The DCU]], Ultraa, the Multi-Alien. Four alien races have rayguns designed to [[You Will Be Assimilated|turn unsuspecting people into members of their race]]. Ultraa gets hit by all four at once.
* If [[EverythingsEverything's Worse With Bears]] and [[EverythingsEverything's Even Worse With Sharks]], then it's hard to imagine just [[Up to Eleven|how appalling]] things are with [http://theygotmixedup.blogspot.com/ Sea Bear and Grizzly Shark]!
* H-142 From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_League_of_Extraordinary_Gentlemen,_Volume_II#Issue_6:_.22You_Should_See_Me_Dance_the_Polka...22: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]
 
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** Not sure what book you guys were reading, but the lobstrosities were ALL lobster, and not humanoid, just very large, with odd vocalizations. Also, the taheen were not only birds. In fact, Finli O'Tego, one of the main antagonists in the final books, was a ''weasel''.
** It's also unclear if the billy-bumbler is an actual [[Mix and Match Critter]], as opposed to a fictional animal that happens to share a few traits with those [[Real Life]] animals.
* [[Michael Moorcock]] got into the act too. His Elric of Melniboné stories included the clakar (winged apes), Dharzi hunting dogs (half dog, half bird), myyrrhn (a winged [[Half -Human Hybrid]]) and vulture lions (vulture head, lion body).
* Othello Bach's ''Whoever Heard of a Fird?'' has the title character, Fird, who is a fird (part fish, part bird). Aside from Snyder Spider and the Boogie Monsters, the rest of the cast is entirely two-feature creatures: dickens (part dog, part chickens), hyenant (hyena/ant), woose (worm/goose), shamels (sheep/camel) dryders (dragon/spider), the Blizard (bird/lizard), burtles (bear/turtle), Ms. Girouse (giraffe/mouse), the snoose (snake/mongoose), and, finally, {{spoiler|bishes (part bird, part fish)}}. There's also talk of a snog (snail/hog), and the sequel includes a snig (snail/pig). Oh, and almost the entire cast exercises a healthy [[Arbitrary Skepticism]], seeing as they're convinced that there's no such thing as a fird.
** There was also a very short-lived line of stuffed toys by Remco based upon these characters, which identified these hybrid creatures as "Firffels". Coincidentally - or not - they arrived around the same time the Wuzzles toy line was launched ([http://babbletrish.blogspot.com/2009/07/highly-dubious-andor-forgotten-80s-toys.html this blog post] has a few pictures and was written by someone who [[Adaptation Displacement|had no idea]] they were based on a book).
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== 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 [[EverythingsEverything'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!"
* According to the back-story of the Jurassic Park '[http://www.figurerealm.com/Galleries.php?SID=408&SSID=1 Chaos Effect]' toy line, InGen hybridized various extinct species (whose genetic material was presumably just lying around) because why the hell not? Most fans disliked the premise and considered this a "very ugly" toy line (the garish paint jobs didn't help), but they did have a cult following.
** Somehow they combined a [[Giant Flyer|Pteranodon]] with an ''[[Mighty Glacier|Ankylosaurus]]'' and made it '''awesome'''. Other creatures in the series include:
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** ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' includes Moonkin, which are owlbears, as well. Druid characters are shapeshifters, and if one takes the offensive spellcasting talents, you can change into one.
** ''WoW'' also has the wolpertinger. It has the body, head, feet, and tail of a hare... and fangs, wings, and antlers. They can also only be seen when ''[[Mushroom Samba|drunk]]''...
* [[Super Mario Bros|Yoshi]] is supposed to be a [[EverythingsEverything's Better With Dinosaurs|dinosaur]]... with a turtle-like shell that doubles as a saddle, a chamelon/froglike tongue that [[Big Eater|swallows]] [[Extreme Omnivore|everything]], and has been known to [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons|grow (feathered) wings and breathe fire]]... and he wears boots.
** Bowser is commonly confused to be a dragon-turtle, but he's actually designed to be an ox-turtle. Miyamoto originally envisioned him to be an ox, but his staff convinced him to make Bowser a turtle instead. Bowser's final design merged the two creatures.
* The ratigators from ''[[Sewer Shark]]''.
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* ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'' with its chimerae and [[Shapeshifting]] [[Transformation Ray|devices]] which is taken to another level involuntarily with Vlad/Vladia being created from DNA from several bats, owls, hawks and even a leopard in addition to human and an alien and voluntarily with Grace who can mix and match aspects from [[Partial Transformation|any]] and [[Shape Shifter Mashup|all]] of her continually growing number of forms. Also, [http://www.egscomics.com/sketchbook/?date=2004-03-07 this] critter in filler.
* ''[[The Princess Planet]]'' often have whole strips devoted to Princess Christi and other princesses trying to outdo each other by showing all ever weirder [[Mix and Match Critters]] than the other.
* ''[[Eight 8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'': [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2004/04/10/episode-406-and-badger-snakes/ I'm sorry, no I won't take it. If we accept orc zombies, then we open the gate to all kinds of crap. What's next? Centaur dragons? How about demon fairies? Maybe buffalo elves? Heck, why not whale vultures?]
** And as the title suggests: [[Weebl and Bob|Badger-Snakes]]?
* ''[[Homestuck]]'': [[Mook|Mooks]] encountered in the Medium (imps, ogres, basilisks, etc) assume various combinations of features (and included powers) from the players' prototyped sprites when they enter; in the kids' session it's a mix of harlequin outfits from Nannaquin, wings and a sword from Seppukrow, cat features and tentacles from Jaspers, dog features and various levels of [[Reality Warper]] powers from Becquerel. The royalty of Prospit and Derse take on all the prototyped features at once through their [[Requisite Royal Regalia]], and any Prospitian or Dersite can use said regalia. This is taken to an extreme in the [[Troll|trolls]]' session when they accumulate ''twelve'' separate prototype features including some nearly gamebreaking psychic abilities that made the Black King almost unbeatable.
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* ''Lots'' of "[[Furry Fandom|fursonas]]" are this way, to the extent that there are bird-mammal hybrids, or fish-mammal hybrids, or insect-mammal hybrids. For whatever reason, part-wolves and part-Blue Jays tend to be especially popular, with griffon-like Jay/Wolves essentially being the Holy Grail of animal avatars.
** One strange instance had a character which consisted of a hyena crossed with a cuttlefish...
* 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 [[PeoplesPeople'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.
* [http://zoofights.squarespace.com/ ZOOFIGHTS] features a few of these, notably the infamous SwanMass (it kept absorbing things and just wouldn't die) and [[http://zoofights.squarespace.com/display/ShowImage?imageUrl=/storage/round1_fight7/zoofights<!-- 20heart20of%20darkness%202.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1269275079771 Heart of Darkness]]/[[http://zoofights.squarespace.com/display/ShowImage?imageUrl=/storage/zoofights4_images/losers_r1_f4/Hyperfauna.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1269858258233 Hyperfauna]] (who might ''also'' be SwanMass). -->
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** Koala-Sheep. Basically, adorable falls of fluff that make great pillows.
** Ostrich-Horses seem to be the main means of travel before the invention of air-balloon and cars.
** [[But Wait! There's More!|And there's more...]] The real kicker is that [[Mix and Match Critters]] are such a common reality in the ''Avatar'' universe, that the main characters actually show a bit of shock upon hearing a "normal" animal (the Earth King's pet brown bear) exists in "City of Walls and Secrets".
*** The fact that they're given portmanteau names implies that there are (or were) "pure" versions of all the animals mentioned (not just the bear), although they seem to be relatively rare or even extinct. There's a bit of [[Fridge Logic]] when you wonder how the hell they knew that a platypus ''isn't'' a [[Mix and Match Critter]].
*** [[Cute Kitten|Regular cats]] appear to be quite common and socially accepted.
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{{quote| '''Al Gore:''' Manbearpig is real! I'm SUPER cereal!}}
** And ''the'' [[Physical God|God]] is best described as hippo-cat with a lizard's tongue.
** Doubly subverted in one episode. They try to splice pig and elephant DNA, despite having heard that song by Loverboy. They don't get a pig/elephant hybrid. It looks like a normal pig. But...[[But You Screw One Goat!|its face looks like]] [[Depraved Homosexual|Mr. Garrison]].
* An early Fleischer Studios ''[[Superman]]'' cartoon had the Man of Steel pitted against the Hawk People, a [[Winged Humanoid]] species with bird heads, and strong enough to give Supes trouble.
* The title charcter of ''[[Chowder]]'' and Panini are both a cross between a cat, bear, and rabbit. However, the original idea for the Chowder design was to look like some sort of squeeze toy.
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* Alfe from ''[[The Problem Solverz]]'' is supposed to be part human, part dog, and part anteater, although he doesn't really resemble any of those.
* Maleficent's goons from ''[[Sleeping Beauty (Disney)|Sleeping Beauty]]'', which all resemble evil pig-vulture-gorilla-things.
* Season one of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' has featured a manticore (in episode 2), a griffin (in episode 5), and a cockatrice (in episode 17). Discord, the villain of the season 2 premiere "The Return of Harmony", is a vaguely dragon-like creature called a "Draconequus" with the head of a pony and a mish-mash of other animal parts, including a pair of mismatched antlers, a lion's paw, an eagle's talon, and a snake's tail.
* Penny, Gumball's girlfriend from ''[[The Amazing World of Gumball]]'', is an anthropomorphic peanut with antlers.
** Non-anthropomorphic animals are often this trope to the extreme.
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== Real Life ==
* The [[EverythingsEverything's Better With Platypi|platypus]], an animal originally considered so bizarre that it was dismissed as a hoax. It seems fairly benign today, but imagine someone in 1798 receiving pelts of a creature that looked like [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Platypus-sketch.jpg equal parts duck, beaver and otter] that also laid eggs. And that was before the male was discovered to be ''venomous''.
** The platypus injects its venom through the spurs on its FEET. While not stolen from another animal, it is still a damn freaky thing to do.
** The female, on the other hand, ''sweats milk''. And both of them can sense electric fields...
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[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]
[[Category:Mix And Match Critters]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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