Our Werebeasts Are Different

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Werebears, Werewolves, and Wereboars, oh my!


I'm looking forward to two fantastic monthly events now. One of which turns me into a vicious monster and the other one into a were-cat.
Katie McBride, The Wotch

Werebeasts are creatures that can transform between a human (or at least humanoid) form and an animal or animal-like form. They are also known as "werecreatures" or "were-animals". The prefix "were" comes from the Old English word "wer", meaning "man". The technical term for this is therianthropy, from the Greek words for "beast" and "man". The better known Lycanthropy comes from the Greek words for "wolf" and "man", and should only be used for Werewolves. Such creatures can be found in the mythology of many cultures, and the myths have inspired the frequent use of werecreatures in modern Speculative Fiction, particularly Fantasy and Horror.

By far the most common form of werebeast depicted in fiction inspired by European folklore is the Werewolf, but many stories use other animals as the basis of their werebeasts. Some of these are inspired by real world mythologies and others are purely the invention of the authors. Other than wolves, potentially dangerous predatory mammals such as cats, panthers, lions and bears are the most frequently depicted werebeasts (due to their Rule of Cool). However, many other types of creature has been used as the basis of a werebeast. Sometimes authors use normally harmless creatures as the basis of a werecreature for the sake of Rule of Cute or Rule of Funny. Some works will even use extremely unconventional ideas such as werecars. It should also be noted that while werebeasts normally have humanoid shapes as their default form, sometimes a work will reverse the order and make a werebeast an animal that transforms into a human. The wolf version of this is sometimes called a "wolfwere".

Werebeasts often have variations and characteristics similar to those listed on the Werewolf Analysis Page. For more information see The Other Wiki Therianthropy page.

This page is the Super-Trope for all therianthropes, including Our Werewolves Are Different. The preference for examples on this trope is for creatures explicity called "were", however very similar cases of human-animal transformation can also be listed, if the nature of the character or creature is strongly linked to a specific animal species. Creatures that can turn into any sort of creature or multiple types of creatures should not be listed here, but on the pages for Voluntary Shapeshifting or Animorphism.

Related Tropes

Examples of Our Werebeasts Are Different include:


Anime and Manga

  • C'tarl C'tarl from Outlaw Star are werecats with several intermediate forms (Fuzzy Space-Elf to Cat Person to Buff Superpowered Cat Person to Giant Tiger) whose access are dependent on the presence and phase of a moon and on their own personal energy reserves.
  • Fruits Basket: The Sohma family is under a curse that causes Involuntary Shapeshifting into animal form when hugged by members of the opposite sex that are not relatives. While not called werebeasts, each member has a single and unique alternate animal form. The animals are those of the Eastern Zodiac: rat, dog, tiger, rabbit, dragon (he actually turns into a seahorse), ox, snake, sheep, monkey, horse, pig and rooster; plus cat.
  • Zoan fruits in One Piece turn the recipents into werebeasts. They tend to be dangerous mass of muscle even if the template creature was relatively harmless (this is also a general tendency among werebeast. A werehamster can be as dangerous as a werewolf).
    • Essentially, it depends on the user's own skills and creativity, as with all devil fruit users. Used properly, a devil fruit can enhance a person's already powerful skills. Used improperly, the person becomes overly dependent on that devil fruit and can easily be defeated by anyone who has actual fighting skills. Thus, if someone has an elephant zoan fruit, but is an average joe otherwise, they can be easily defeated by someone with a mouse zoan if the mouse zoan has more expertise.
  • Saiyans in Dragon Ball transform into giant rampaging monkeys when they see the light of a full moon. Cutting off their tails prevents this, but until they reach a certain age, it will grow back under said full moon.
  • The manga Cowa! has the main character who is a werekoala and also part vampire.
  • Evangelion Unit-02 from Rebuild of Evangelion can "shed its human form" when given the secret password "The Beast".
  • Blair from Soul Eater is a cat that frequently takes a Catgirl form that looks mostly human except for her cat ears and tail.
  • The chimeras in Full Metal Alchemist are combinations of animals, which can and does sometimes include humans. As the manga progresses, the humanoid chimeras go from being tragic abominations, to quirky mutants, to tough guys thatcan turn into even tougher beast-men.


Comics

  • In Thrud The Barbarian there was a werehamster. As expected, he was quite monstrous.
  • The Marvel Universe features a few:
    • "The Cat" was once just a costumed heroine, but a ritual was performed on her, transforming her into the werecat Tigra, who would go on to join The Avengers. Her costume was later inherited by Hellcat of The Defenders. There's a tug-of-war between her human and feline instincts and which has the upper hand tends to depend on the writer. One day she's able to fly interstellar spacecraft, the next she's chasing and eating mice and unable to speak (except in cat noises).
    • Ursa Major is a Russian superhero able to turn into a humanoid bear.
    • Catseye was a member of the Hellions and was meant as an Evil Counterpart to New Mutants Wolvesbane.
  • In Fred Perry's Gold Digger, one of the main characters is one of the last Werecheetahs. Other weres include Lions, Tigers, Rats, and of course Wolves. Each subspecies is able to shift between human, animal, and a "Wolf-Man" styled hybrid form. All of the weres retain their rationality in each of their forms, although they need to learn to control their instincts during childhood. Although the weres are separate species, they are capable of spreading thirianthropy to Humans as a disease; they were originally created by a wizard as Super Soldiers before said wizard was betrayed. They have a Healing Factor for everything except attacks by another were, silver, magic, and Dwarven Steel.
  • Tangent Comics has Wildcat, a teenage girl who transforms into a feral werecat when her handler says the word "Shazam".
  • In the Furry Comic Red Shetland, Eon is one of these (technically) of the Animal-Into-Man variety. Or...Normal horse into bi-pedal walking/talking horse. It's a curse thing.
  • If being a permanent hybrid between the two animals counts, and you can replace "magical" with "radioactive" or "genetically engineered", there's Spider-Man and his ilk; of especial mention is Spider-Ham, who was originally a spider that was bitten by a radioactive pig.


Film

  • Cat People involved people that could turn into black panthers when sexually aroused.
  • Ladyhawke features a couple of young lovers cursed to take on animal form at different times, as to keep them apart; the man turns into a wolf at night, and the lady into a... guess what.
  • The Howling III: The Marsupials features were-thylacines (an extinct marsupial predator more commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger).
  • Black Sheep (2006 film) has two characters becoming weresheep after being bitten by the titular killer ovines.
  • In the film The Secret of Roan Inish the eponymous secret involves a selkie.
  • Track of the Moon Beast (1976) features a rare were-lizard man! Caused by being struck in the head by a radioactive chunk of moonrock!
  • The Hideous Sun Demon (1959) features the only other were-lizard man. This one is caused by exposure to intense radiation, but unlike lunar-controlled wear-creatures, this one transforms when he is hit by the light of the SUN.


Literature

  • The Shifters Series by Rachel Vincent features werecats who change at will and live in lion-like prides.
  • The Turning by Helen Ellis has an werecats. It's genetic, starts sometime during puberty, then lasts for two weeks every year for five years before stopping permanently. The 'turning' is brought on by contact with a cat (real or 'turned'). there is a cure, but it only works before the second time you 'turn'.
  • In Warwolf: The Centurion Warrior Book 1: The Warriors has mentions of werecats and even a werecobra, in addition to the more typical werewolves.
  • Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle series includes several characters who are werecats. The novel describes werecats not as shapeshifting humans, but as a separate magical species.
  • The children's novel, Prince of Pirates, features an enchantress named Leonora, who can turn herself into a panther at will.
  • Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, in addition to werewolves, has wereleopards, werelions, weretigers (including blue, red and black tigers in the last book), at least 3 weredogs (their abilities are inherited not infection), weresnakes (at lest 2 species cobra and anaconda), swanmen (some are cursed others inherit their abilities like the weredogs), wererats, werebears, and werehyenas.
  • In the book On the Edge, by Ilona Andrews, the heroine's brother is a werecat. He can turn into a lynx at will.
  • In Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels books, the leader of the Pack is a werecat. He can change into a lion. Additional werebeasts include werebears, werebuffalos, wererats, werehyenas, werebadgers, etc.
  • The short story "Lusus Naturae" by Margaret Atwood centers on a young woman whose parents fake her death to hide the fact that she is a werecat.
  • The book series Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind includes a werecat.
  • The Jill Kismet series by Lilith Saintcrow contains a number of werecat (or cat-were) characters.
  • In the Otherworld series by Yasmine Galenorn one of the main characters is a werecat named Delilah D'artigo.
  • In Patricia A. McKillip's novel The Tower at Stony Wood the characters meet a selkie, or were-seal.
  • In the first novel of the Merry Gentry series, A Kiss of Shadows, Merry's lover is a selkie named Roan Finn who has temporarily lost his ability to change shape.
  • James A Hetley's novels Dragon's Eye and Dragon's Teeth have a family with the hereditary ability to turn into seals.
  • A.E. van Vogt's SF novel The Silkie features genetically modified people who can transform into aquatic, seal-like creatures or into living spaceships.
  • The Hobbit features Beorn, a "skin-changer" who can shapeshift into a bear at will and uses this ability to kill orcs. The Silmarillion also features some magical shapeshifting, which requires the skin of the monster to be imitated.
  • The fantasy novel The Shattered World takes a more true-to-folklore approach: its various werebeasts are humans who acquire their shapechanging powers through a spell, so they can take the shapes of animals. One of the protagonists is a werebear, and must periodically "release" the bear within, fearing it that will force its shape upon him if denied its freedom for too long. Werebeasts in this Verse are vulnerable to normal weapons, suffer Transformation Trauma, and can never be cured if they've been shapechangers for longer than a few weeks.
  • The Kitty Norville novels has a number of different types of werebeast, including a were-jaguar and a were-seal. The rule is that the were-creature is always a predator, as Kitty explains to a caller on her radio show who suspects he is a were-alpaca.
  • The Jaguar Princess by Clare Bell also features a were-jaguar woman in Aztec Mexico.
  • Mordred in The Dark Tower is a werespider.
  • Spider Robinson's "Lady Sally" stories have a were-beagle.
  • In The Dresden Files, while Harry Dresden is researching werewolves, Bob also mentions that there have also been such things as werebuffaloes and weregoats.
  • In Sunshine by Robin McKinley, there are all kinds of were-animals, and wolves are said to be comparatively rare.
  • In Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson series features Mercy who is a were-coyote.
  • The Fayth Hunter series Jane Yellowrock features a Skin Walker named Jane who is technically a classic shifter who can assume any form but prefers (or is forced to) take cat form mostly.
  • Mary Janice Davidson's Jennifer Scales series has weredragons.
  • People who can turn into animals are one breed of Other in Night Watch. Werewolves are always Dark, but the rest can apparently be of any alignment.
  • In The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries, Sookie's brother Jason is abducted and bitten by a were-panther, so he turns into a sort of panther-man at the full moon.
  • The River of Dancing Gods series has, in addition to werewolves and other common types of werecreatures, a variation simply called a "were", which transforms into whatever animal is nearest when the full moon takes effect.
  • Golden Dragon Fantasy Gamebooks has a werecat and a weretiger.
  • In the Blood features werecats.
  • Silicon Wolfpack includes multiple types of hereditary werebeasts. Including weresnakes.
  • Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos has a weretiger. Because Anderson's laws of magic insist that mass remains constant, he is a very large, fat man in human form.
  • Fred Saberhagen's novel Dancing Bears features, guess what, ursanthropes.
  • Curtis Jobling's series of fantasy novels Wereworld has all sorts of werecreatures, not limited to mammals.
  • In Robert E. Howard's "Queen of the Black Coast" Conan fights werehyenas who are the minions of the story's Big Bad.


Live-Action TV

  • Mystery Science Theater 3000: During the episode Werewolf (fittingly enough) Mike gets bit/scratched by Crow and becomes a "were-crow".
  • Dinosaurs: In an October 31st Episode Robbie scares Baby by telling him a story of becoming a were-caveman.
  • Big Wolf on Campus has an episode has, in addition to werewolves, a French exchange student who was a werecat.
  • The were-panthers in True Blood.
    • Unlike the books the show is based on, "wereism" is hereditary and cannot be transmitted by a bite. Despite this, Jason is abducted by a group of were-panthers and repeatedly bitten and raped in the hopes of producing viable were-children. Jason stays a human and gets over the rape pretty quickly, although the incident serves as a catalysm to his relationship with Jessica.
    • The series also shows that werewolves can interbreed with other supernatural beings. Specifically, Sam's Love Interest is a Shifter like him (like werewolves but can turn into any animal), who has a daughter fathered by a werewolf. The mother hopes her daughter will become a Shifter.
  • In Blood Ties, a werejaguar takes revenge on a hunter that kills various types of werebeasts. It is implied that (as in the Blood Books the series was based on) wereism is hereditary, rather than transmitted.
  • Freya on Merlin was a Druid girl cursed to turn into a winged werepanther at the stroke of midnight.
  • In Grimm there are many people that have both a human form and a "creature" form, which have so far included werewolves, werebears, wereboars, wererats, satyrs, ogres, weresnakes, and weremice. There has been no indication of any limit to what "creatures" could be out there. And it is awesome.
  • In Wednesday, the title anti-heroine’s friend Enid is a werewolf who cannot “wolf out”; the most she can manage even under a full moon are claws, and even they tend to be of little use, getting in the way more often than they are useful. This causes her no end of distress, as a werewolf who cannot transform would be ostracized by her pack, likely never be able to mate, and would disappoint her parents on top of it. In the season one finale, even a blood moon seems unable to help her do so… until the sociopathic Big Bad is about to kill Wednesday, and she finally manages to fully transform, pulling a Big Damn Heroes as a result.

Music

  • Flippy T. Fishead had a song about becoming a Werecow. There is another werecow which he is engaged to (who is female when human, and whom he "turned"). The how-and-why of the male-to-female transformation is not addressed.
  • The music video "Thriller" by Michael Jackson has Michael turn into a werecat. He also changed to and from a panther in the hyperextended "Black or White" video.
  • Similarly enough, the Bjork music video Hunter had her changing back and forth into a bear and back into herself. Although she seemed to be holding back her bear transformation.


Mythology and Religion

  • Europe
    • Bears (Russia)
    • Boar (Greece and Turkey)
    • Wolves (All over the place, naturally. Special mention goes to the werewolves of Russia and Scotland, which are thought of as being simply another "race" or "tribe" of people who happen to have the ability to turn into wolves, rather than witches who made a Deal with the Devil)
  • Asia
    • Crocodile (Indonesia)
    • Dog (New Guinea)
    • Tiger (India, Malaysia, Borneo, China and Japan)
  • Africa
    • Crocodile (Egypt and Zambia)
    • Hyena
    • Jackal
    • Leopard
  • The Americas
    • Bears (North America)
    • Hare (North America)
    • Jaguar (North/South America)
    • River Dolphin/Boto Encantado (South America)
  • Specific Example:
    • In French-Canadian mythology, the therianthrope is usually a man who has failed to perform his religious duties for several years straight, often seven. They were then either cursed to take an animal form until freed, or only at night until freed. In most case, the curse can be broken by a neighbor pricking the were's skin with a needle. Legends have been recorded involving people turning into wolves (either full wolves, or a being with the normal form of a wolf but walking on two legs), dogs, hellhounds, cats, imps and at least one pig.
    • In Japanese mythology, henge, a subset of youkai, are magical animals with Shapeshifting powers and human intelligence. They often assume human form and get into all kinds of mischief. Examples of henge should go on the Youkai page.
    • The "Animal Wife" motif which has an animal shed its clothes and become a beautiful woman and often be taken as (or become) the wife of an ordinary human. This includes beings with specific names (Selkies in Iceland and Ireland, Swan-Maidens in Germany, Russia and other area off Europe), but most are just known by their animal form. Examples include Doves (Italy), Wolves (Croatia), Buffalo (Africa) and Cranes (Japan). It also has crossed over to other beings such as (in Japan) divine ones (Tennin, literally "Heavenly Being").
    • The Native American Skin Walker is either a human sorcerer who can take animal form, or a spirit being of incredible power that can take various animal forms. The details vary, but they are considered to be one of the most evil of all monsters.


Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons, as a big Fantasy Kitchen Sink, collected a lot of variants. Generally, there are were-beasts and beast-weres (default form is humanoid and beast respectively) who don't like each other. Many of them even have their own gods.
    • D&D 3rd Edition uses the term lycanthrope to refer to any sort of therianthrope. There are multiple varieties of lycanthrope aside from the usual werewolves, werebears, wererats, wearboars, weretigers, dire wereboars (hill giants that turn into dire boars), and jackleweres. The 3.5 edition monster manual even has a template for any animal. They've always been able to take on the normal animal form and infect with a bite, but other details have cropped up with the evolution of the game, including the addition of a "hybrid" form equivalent to the Man-Wolf, the existence of natural lycanthropes in addition to infected ones, and the imposition of a whole new alignment (and personality) not just on the nonhuman forms but on the human(oid) as well. The most recent edition has the Lycanthrope template, allowing one to make were-anything characters. Recent publications introduced the Shifter player race, descendants of humans and lycanthropes, who were effectively "lycanthrope-lite".
    • Mystara has Chevall. The centaurs who turn into full horses at will and can be hurt only by silver or magical weapons and... that's all.
    • Forgotten Realms had classic types and a few high-profile therianthropic characters.
      • Big Bad of the Threat from the Sea trilogy was an ancient were-Megalodon. As nasty as it sounds, and then some, since he was closely acquainted with several gods, had a habit of collecting artifacts and took the whole "sea world conquest" thing seriously. Known to most underwater races simply as "The Taker".
      • Selûne's divine portfolio includes good shapeshifters. Finder's Stone trilogy had a werebear Selunite high priestess.
      • The surges of Wild Magic during the Time of Troubles caused the creation of were dragons. Usually human, they transform into either dragons or half-dragon humanoids at night, and can be as varied as actual dragons. Song dragons, on the other hand, are also called were-dragons by humans, but they are not, they are in fact a race of true dragons who can assume human form.
    • Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts is a 2nd Edition, Ravenloft book with a host of rules on werebeasts. Unlike most settings, lycanthropes in Ravenloft are almost universally evil, except for the Lawful Good wereravens.
      • Van Richten himself states that he does not believe it is possible for a lycanthrope to exist where the animal stock was not at least partially carnivorous, although the anthology module Children of the Night: Werebeasts includes a were-gorilla in one of its stories. Of course, this was not the only time Van Richten made an error.[1]
    • Dragon magazine introduced a few extra types. The tibbits, reprinted in the Dragon Compendium book, has humanoid form small, with Pointy Ears and cat eyes, somewhat resembling halflings. They can turn cats at will. Sillier variants included the werehare. Among other things, the creature could only be harmed by magic weapons and holy hand grenades.
  • Warhammer Fantasy has Werebears living in the Northlands.
  • Magic: The Gathering has Werebears and Wererats.
    • With Innistrad and its accompanying marinade of Hammer Horror tropes come Werewolves.
  • Rifts and other games in Palladium's Megaverse have them as multiple species, ranging from Wolves to Bears, and some of the big cats such as Werepanthers and Werejaguars.
  • The Old World of Darkness' Werewolf: The Apocalypse, in addition to the titular werewolves, has 11 other breeds of shapeshifters, described in their own Splat books. Some examples include the Corax (were-ravens), Gurahl (were-bears), Bastet (were-cats), Rokea (were-sharks), Mokole (were-lizards), Kitsune (were-foxes), and Ananasi (were-spiders).
    • The New World of Darkness also has werewolves, and provides tools to build just about any wereanimal you can think of (in Skinchangers, Changing Breeds and War Against The Pure).
  • Ars Magica includes were-bears and were-lynxes.
  • The Munchkin card game gives us a werepenguin, a werehamster and a weremuskrat. They are all oversized and sharp-toothed - even the penguin has fangs.
  • In the GURPS Supers supplement Wild Cards, Sewer Jack is a were-alligator.
  • Exalted features the Lunars, who are technically werebeasts in that they have one totem animal they strongly identify with and can easily shift to—but then again, they can shift into anything if they drink its heart's blood. Two of the signature Lunars (Red Jaws and Ma-Ha-Suchi) are technically werewolves, but if you go by signature characters alone, you've got wereowls, werecats, werebulls, wereorcas...

Toys

  • A werecat character, Toralei Stripe, was introduced in the Monster High doll collection.


Video Games

  • In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic the Hedgehog can turn into Sonic the Werehog at night. During his transformation, Sonic is a bigger, furrier, and werewolfish version of himself with huge stretchy arms. He's nowhere near as fast as he is in his normal form, but he is much stronger.
    • Unlike most examples of lycanthropy, however, he's able to fully control himself. Why? Could it be that annoying magical sidekick on his shoulder protecting him? Actually no, it's because Sonic the Hedgehog is just that awesome.
  • Quest 64 has the werehare and werecat.
  • In the video game Breath of Fire III, one of the main characters, Rei, is a weretiger.
  • The game Ogre Battle features weretigers as hidden characters who can be recruited.
  • The 1988 video game Altered Beast includes a stage wherepower-ups transform the player into a weretiger, which provides extra strength and firepower.
  • In Bayonetta, the main character has the ability to transform into a black panther at will, granting her cheetah-like speed. Likewise, the character Jeanne (a fellow witch in the game) can transform into a red lynx.
  • Borderlands has Were-Skags in the first DLC [2]
  • The Elder Scrolls universe features a variety of therianthropic creatures, including werewolves, wereboars, werelions, werecrocodiles, werebears werevultures and even possibly weresharks. Apart from werewolves and wereboars, all of these were only mentioned in the in-universe book "On Lycanthropy" in Daggerfall.
  • The main gimmick of Bloody Roar is that every character is some sort of werebeast. There's a weretiger, werebear, werelion, wererabbit, werefox, werecat, wereboar, weremole, werebat, werechameleon...
  • Dwarf Fortress includes were-everythings, including weresheep and werekoalas.
  • Keine Kamishirasawa from Touhou Project is a were-hakutaku, a mythological beast that appears to wise and just rulers to dispense advice.
  • Nethack has wererats and werejackals in addition to the usual werewolves. All three types can infect you with their flavor of lycanthropy.
  • Dragon Age: Origins a variety of werebeasts. Most werebeasts are actually humans or animals possessed by demons from the Fade and subsequently mutated.
  • While Castlevania is usually content with werewolves, Circle of the Moon features werebears, werejaguars, weretigers, and more. Aria of Sorrow features a couple of these also. Castlevania (Nintendo 64) devotes a tower to battling a variety of them, and its prequel Legacy of Darkness gives us Ortega, a werelion who receives enough power from Dracula to become a werechimera.
  • Atelier Iris features werecats as random monsters.
  • While not called werebeasts or werecreatures, the game Fire Emblem Tellius, has Laguz: a race of people who can shift from human-like forms into animal forms. When in human form, they still have certain animal-like physical traits, such as tails, wings, ears, and colored stripes on their faces. Varieties include cat, tiger, lion, wolf, hawk, raven, heron, and dragon.
  • The Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines game includes werebatlike creatures and weresharks which come as a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere event.
  • In Muppet Monster Adventure Fozzie Bear is turned into a Wocka Wocka Werebear.
  • The Druid of Diablo II can turn into a Werebear or Werewolf.
  • Pictured above are the animal forms of the Norn race from Guild Wars 2, they have a pantheon of animal spirits that they worship, but venerate four above all the rest for directly aiding them in an exodus from their homeland, besides the bear and wolf (they lack boar in-game, interestingly) pictured above, there's also the raven and snow leapord forms.
  • In the DLC for Dungeons of Dredmor, there's a skill that allows the player to become a Werediggle. Diggles are the game's Mascot Mook, rubbery birdlike things with drills on their beaks.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • In A Link to The Past: When people enter the Dark World, they turn into an animal (real or fantasy) that reflects their personality. Link becomes a pink bunny rabbit but keeps his trademark tunic.
    • Similarly in Twilight Princess, Link turns into a wolf when exposed to Twilight, rather than a ghost like everyone else, because of the shielding effects of the Triforce of Courage.


Webcomics

  • Peter Is the Wolf: About one in every 1000 people in the world is some sort of were; werewolves are most common and have the most developed social structure, but there are plenty of other were species with their own idiosyncracies (werebears are antisocial, werelions are arrogant and lazy, etc.)
  • The Wotch has a few lycanthropic minor characters (a hereditary werewolf (Samantha "Wolfie" Wolfe) and an inflicted werecat (Katie McBride). Transformations occur involuntarily under a full moon (or a spell capable of duplicating those conditions), and victims lose their normal personalities while transformed (though both above characters can overcome this thanks to a magic amulet). There's even a case of a "were-woman", a man who turns into a woman with an independant personality of her own (this is apparently super-rare even among weres, probably because most women don't go around biting people.)
  • Living with Insanity has a cat that used a spell on herself and can now transform into a human at will.
  • El Goonish Shive has Shapeshifting is one of main themes. A traditional curse-based Werewolf appeared only in the backstory, but there are shapeshifting Uryuoms and their hybrid offspring running around. A chimera typically is born able to shift between the default hybrid form and forms of parent species (other than Uryuom) while retaining some traits.
    • Grace is sometimes referred to as a "were-squirrel", since she morphs between human, squirrel and squirrel/human (she does mix in the third base form, especially when upset, but early on this was rather subtle), due to genes of human, squirrel, and two different shape-shifting aliens.
    • Then a new term was coined from Dewitchery Diamond's purpose and nature of the last "curse" it "removed": weregirl.
  • Roger in CRFH is a were-coyote.
  • Clan of the Cats Chelsea's suffering from a Curse running in her father's family, making werecats out of every female member.
  • Eerie Cuties has at least werewolves, werecats, ocelots - and if the look of two characters we didn't see transforming are an indication, owl and some sort of a rodent. Also, there are Melusines, though considering the original legend they probably are snake/nymph or snake/fey rather than snake/human.
  • Dork Tower has Nibbler, the Were-Vole Cheese Slayer, in a game played by the cats Pookie and Fernslayer.
  • Shifters includes a werecat, a werebear, a werecrow and various weredogs.
  • B-Movie Comic had to find something unusual to use when Snuka transforms.

Web Original


Western Animation

  • The Wallace and Gromit movie Curse Of The Were-Rabbit featured the eponymous creature.
  • The werecar in the Futurama episode, "The Honking".
  • An episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog had Muriel get bitten by a weremole.
  • Stan Lee's Stripperella had to deal with a Werebeaver in one episode.
  • An episode of Dave the Barbarian has Dave get bitten by a cow and turn into a werecow. Also halfway through the middle he gets turned into other things like a cat, Oswitch, a hamster, Lula, an egg beater, a gym teacher, and finally... himself! But the twist comes at the end where Faffy ends up turning into a weredave.
  • Egon got turned into a were-chicken in The Real Ghostbusters.
  • In the 1998 animated film Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Lena DuPrais, Simone Lenoir and Jacques (the film's antagonist) were werecats. They were referred to as "cat creatures" several times. Other occurrences of "cat creatures" have appeared on What's New, Scooby-Doo?? and The Scooby-Doo Show.
  • In She Ra Princess of Power, the villainess Catra can change into a panther, due to a magical mask that was stolen from the queen of a race of cat-people.
  • On Regular Show, Rigby is attacked by a Were-skunk.
  • Also, in the Codename: Kids Next Door episode, "Operation H.O.U.N.D.", Numbuh Five confronted her rival, Valerie, who was revealed to have the power to transform into a were-poodle. Earlier in the episode, Numbuh Five was attacked by a vicious dog who ate her homework, who was later revealed to have been Valerie in her were-poodle form.
    • Then in the Sequel Episode “Operation: D.O.G.H.O.U.S.E.”, it’s revealed that all the school’s Honor Roll students are also weredogs, and their teacher is the Head Weredog due to a cursed necklace given to her by her vindictive ex-husband.
  • An episode of Mona the Vampire has a wereclown.
    • A Halloween episode of Dexters Laboratory also had a wereclown concept where Dexter gets bitten by a pair of clown dentures and turns into a Monster Clown whenever he laughs.
  • An episode of the Ace Ventura cartoon had Ace go to a village to hunt down a killer moose; it later turns out that it was a weremoose. Almost everyone Ace runs into in the village happens to be a weremoose, with even his own pet monkey Spike getting turned into one. Later on, it turns out that the very person who brought him there is the original weremoose and has the power to transform at will via a special talisman and the very reason he brought Ace over to the village is so he could turn him into one, telling him that he'll be granted special powers and that together they'll create a race of moose men.
  • In the Kappa Mikey episode "Night Of The Werepuff", there is a creature called a werepuff- it's a furry creature that eats clothes. Mikey gets turned into one.
  • The Super Mario Bros Super Show episode "Count Koopula" featured Wereturtles.
  • One episode of The Little Mermaid involved Flounder becoming a "Howling Hairfish".
  • The new Halloween Episode of Phineas and Ferb features Doofensmirtz turning into a werecow.
  • Ben 10 can turn into not one, but 10 (at least at the beginning, later he gets more) different aliens, each with a different super power. Part of the show involves him slowly learning how to better discern which alien's power best fits a given situation.
  1. Some sources have Retconed this, making Professor Arcanus' beast form a carnivorous ape.
  2. Skags are pretty wolf-like, coming in varieties like "Pup" and "Alpha", but possess armor plating and heads like Venus fly traps, which open vertically.