Non-Mammal Mammaries: Difference between revisions
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Look closely at a female reptile, a female amphibian, a female bird, a female fish, a female insect, or most non-primate mammals. You'll doubtless notice the lack of a particular characteristic that is common to female humans.
Most animals do not have human-like breasts at all, even if they fall into the category "mammal". Artists tend to oversize the mammaries of characters that do have them or put them in places where they don't belong. Compare the bellies of a male and female dog, or even the chest of ''a female gorilla,'' and you won't find much difference unless she's recently given birth to a litter and is nursing young (that's about the only time she will ''ever'' have any vague semblance of what we call "breasts" on humans). Both the size and position of human breasts are likely [[wikipedia:Sexual selection in human evolution#Human anatomy|the results of bipedalism]]
Prominent breasts, or lack thereof, is one of the simplest instinctive [[Rule of Perception|visual cues]] for [[Most Writers Are Human|
If the character is an [[Human Aliens|alien]] or artificial life form, then it makes a little bit more sense. Aliens have [[Bizarre Alien Biology]] after all, and creators of synthoids and such would probably want their "children" to be anthropomorphic enough to fit in. Not to mention that it's easier to design a [[Rubber Forehead Aliens|skin-tight rubber bodysuit with strange textures]] for use by human actors.
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However, it tends to make a lot less sense when applied to avian and reptilian races of creatures or aliens. Breasts are for nursing young, and for an Avian with a nice hard beak (Especially those with curved or hooked beaks) that would be ''incredibly'' painful. Reptiles often have sharp teeth and often strong jaws, too, same with some fish. However, this can possibly be explainable for reptilians because their teeth don't develop during nursing, the same way humans do. Remember, [[Department of Redundancy Department|breasts are for nursing young primarily]]—not ''just'' to look sexy.
This is common in the [[Furry Fandom]], however, there are actually some aversions as seen in the [[Web Comics]]
Just in case male non-mammals feel left out, note that external genitalia and nipples are also a "mammal thing", and their presence in male creatures from other taxonomic groups is a variant of this trope.
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** Not to mention this was lampshaded in an issue that took place at the beach when one of the characters Outright asks "Why does a lizard have such huge tits anyway?"
* Tricerachops of ''[[Super Dinosaur]]'' is a half-dinosaur, half-human mutant who evidently has mammaries.
=== Fan Works ===
* In the ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4759824/1/Shadowchasers Shadowchasers Series]]'', the ophidia are a race of [[Snake People]] where this is common for females, and [[Non-Mammalian Hair]] is occasionally found on both genders. This is actually brought up in one chapter of the second fic, where it states a female ophidia's mammaries are non-functional, and if they ever nursed their young, it was millennia ago. This, in fact, hints that they may have origins closer to humans (their traditional enemies) than either race cares to admit.
=== Literature ===
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* There was another, very cheeky subversion in "The Race", from Turtledove's ''[[Worldwar]]'' series, where most of the characters are [[Humanoid Animals]]. The majority of the main cast were non-mammals. The hero was a reptile who [[Humans Through Alien Eyes|noticeably failed to see the appeal of breasts]]—and he was the only male character who'd look the female mammal characters in the ''eyes'' while talking (think about that one). What's more, a female character was visibly [[Squick]]ed when she had to have the function of mammary glands explained to her. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|They also found the concept of cheese to be a little weird]].
* Averted in ''Azure Bonds'', where the heroine isn't sure of the sex of her saurial companion, due to her realization that a reptile wouldn't have breasts or wide hips for birthing.
* Similarly averted in ''[[
* Averted in ''Psychoshop'', where a reptile-descended humanoid female is similar enough to make love, but has no breasts, no nipples, and no navel.
* Amusingly averted with the draconians of ''Dragonlance'', where male draconians have been known to ''lament'' their females' lack of noticeable feminine characteristics. "Hugging one of those girls would be just like hugging one of you guys..."
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=== Tabletop Games ===
* The Yuan-Ti in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' are snake people. It may have something to do with being able to [[Half-Human Hybrid|inter-breed with humans]] (indeed, some supplements explain that "the yuan-ti are descended from evil human cultists who mixed their bloodlines with those of serpents," which is itself impossible); but it was probably due to... "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130605210032/http://www.llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/target66.html artistic license]".
** In some editions, this is explicitly the result of magical assistance from a demon lord worshiped by the cultists, making it a case of [[A Wizard Did It|A God Did It]].
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' has this in 4E with the Drakkoths, which are an unusual mixture of crested lizard upper torso and the body of some sort of spiny-tailed drake in the style of a centaur. The females, despite the obvious reptilian nature of these creatures, have breasts.
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** ''[[Video Game/Everquest 2|Everquest 2]]'', however, made Iksar females significantly slimmer than males, and gave them breasts, albeit breasts that could only be described as "minimalist" by MMORPG standards. Still subverted with the Frogloks and Sarnak, however. Female frogloks are a bit slimmer than males but close to indistinguishable. Female sarnak (a bipedal dragon hybrid) are much larger than males and have less elaborate facial horns.
* Several Kremlings from the ''[[Donkey Kong Country]]'' series (particularly Klump and K. Rool) have nipples... and ''navels''. [[You Fail Biology Forever|Um...]]
** Exhibit A: [http://www.mariowiki.com/Kalypso Kalypso]. Exhibit B: [http://www.mariowiki.com/Klump Klump]. o_0 Though reptiles don't have breasts or nipples they do have a kind of navel where the yolk sac was attached to them. Birds and monotremes (mammals that lay eggs) also have this.
* The Argonians in the world of ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]''... although this was temporarily dropped for ''Morrowind'' (unless you install certain mods). This accomplished little other than quite bluntly demonstrating the usefulness of this trope, as it was suddenly quite hard to tell male and female Argonians apart in that game.
** Although closer examination reveals males typical have wider heads, differences in body shape and different coloring. That and females have different hair from most males.
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* Mrs. Toad in ''[[Thumbelina]]''. Almost bordering on [[Gag Boobs]]. Of course, she was [[Ink Suit Actor|voiced by Charo]]...
* The Gungan, Rhodian and Mon Cala (they might look like fish, but they're in fact Amphibians) females from ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars|Star Wars the Clone Wars]]''.
* Oola from ''[[Disenchantment]]''; she insists her people are amphibians, though they share some traits with reptiles, and they have this and [[Non-Mammalian Hair]].
== Fish and Other Sea Creatures ==
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=== Web Comics ===
* Parodied and subverted on [http://cyantian.net/csafari/?p=232 this page]{{Dead link}} of ''[[The Cyantian Chronicles|Campus Safari]]''. Sure, the female shark has two curved masses, but they're ''gills''. The [[All There in the Manual|site's wiki]] also states that males have gills in the breast area, too, but they're less prominent due to their wide chests.
* In ''[[Nautibits]]'', mermaids have venom sacs that look like human breasts (except no nipples).
=== Web Original ===
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* In Lisanne' Norman's ''Sholan Alliance'' books, this trope is averted by the [[Catfolk|felinoid]] extra-terrestrials. In fact, it's stated in one book that the fact that female humans have breasts at all times makes them quite attractive to the males.
* Similarly averted in, of all things, a ''[[Star Trek]]'' novel called ''Uhura's Song''. The plot concerns humanoid cat-people who, upon meeting Uhura, ask her where her children are since she has breasts. She explains that human females keep their breasts even when not nursing, and the cat people basically say, "Oh, interesting." At least it was ''mentioned''.
* Played with in the ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[
* In one of the ''[[Myth Adventures]]'' novels, a woman is attempting to use an illusion to look like a werewolf despite never having seen one. Later on, when she meets one, the female werewolf laughs over the, "And you only had two breasts."
* Somewhat related: the ''[[Redwall]]'' series has a unique problem. Most of the characters are mammals, but there are no non-anthropomorphic mammals (besides the horse in the original novel and it's been more or less retconned out at this point). Yet they are always eating ''cheese''. It was eventually explained that the milk is "Greensap milk", produced from "roots and tubers". (Mm, tastes like Deus Ex Machina. But at least it avoids the potentially embarrassing problems of locating the real stuff...)
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**** Male animals usually do have bigger horns than females in [[Real Life]].
* In ''[[Mario & Luigi]]'', Bowser gets them after {{spoiler|Cackletta takes over his unconscious body}}—on the ''outside'' of {{spoiler|her}} shell.
* Justified with the various anthropomorphic races featured in the MUCK game ''[http://scross.homeip.net/wiki SouthernCross]''.{{Dead link}}
** This also averts [[Furry Confusion]]!
* In ''[[Star Trek Online]]'', all females use the same body model. This includes Andorians (who have some insectoid features, like a partial exoskeleton and antenna, and ''four'' genders, with the one that actually bears the young doing so in a fashion rather like marsupials) and Saurians (lizard-people, what else).
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* Explained away in ''Triquetra Cats'' with the Antreyui, they are descendants of humans who have been spliced with the DNA of animals, so they're not so much anthropomorphic animals but thereomorphic ''people'', the lizard people and bird people may have reptilian and avian traits and features but they are still mammals.
* ''[[NSFW Comix]]'' was doing a few comics with dinosaur-related puns, which he called "Dinosaurgy". In one, it shows an ostensibly female triceratops stripping with bare breasts. In the flavor text, he acknowledges that it's impossible since dinosaurs aren't mammals, and therefore, have no mammaries, to avoid a barrage of emails from anal fans.
** More like [[
* ''[[Jack (webcomic)|Jack]]'' uses this trope, as it includes insects, birds, reptiles and even dinosaurs, all with breasts. Possibly justified, however, as {{spoiler|all furries were created from human DNA. It's possible that the mammal/bird/etc classifications are just cosmetic.}} They even show a mammalian furry married to an insect "furry", with little big-eyed mammal kids with antennae. Oddly enough, they've showed such cross-breeds earlier many times in the series, without the explanation given until then.
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* In the [[Downtown]] episode "The Con", Alex and Serena look at ''Robot Porn''.
* The ''[[Schoolhouse Rock]]'' character, Interplanet Janet, is half human and half spaceship but sports a pair of metallic breasts.
* Master-mold from ''[[Wolverine and the X-Men]]'' is the [[
== Other ==
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=== Literature ===
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** In ''[[
** In the ''Annotated Pratchett File v9.0'', there's a bad joke cited in the ''[[Moving Pictures]]'' section about a toad with a troublesomely yellow penis. In reality, for a toad even to ''have'' a penis would be far more troublesome than its coloration.
* In ''[[Garrett P.I.|Petty Pewter Gods]]'', Garrett tells a nosy hustler that he controls Mr. Big's chatter by tugging on a concealed thread that's tied to the parrot's little bird balls. Justified because the only thing Garrett's really yanking is the hustler's chain.
* In ''[[American Gods]]'', Anansi tells a story of how he tricked a tiger into swapping its tiger's testicles for his own tiny little spider testicles.
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* In a rare male variant of the nipples side of the equation, Duck from ''[[Almost Naked Animals]]'' has nipples.
* On ''[[American Dad]],'' Roger is a male [[The Greys|Grey alien]]. While he does not have humanoid breasts, he nevertheless goes through a cyclical mating phase [[Squick|where he can lactate]]. And [[Mister Seahorse|accidentally impregnant humans]] [[Hilarity Ensues|via CPR]].
** Roger's lactation accelerates if he finishes eating something, which gives Stan and Francine the idea of stuffing Roger with food so he can keep making milk for them. This causes a hilarious scene where Roger gains a ton of weight and is hooked up to a milking machine as he keeps getting force
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Did Not Do the Research]]
[[Category:Bizarre Alien Biology]]
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[[Category:Keep Abreast of This Index]]
[[Category:Animal Anthropomorphism Tropes]]
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