History Main / FlyingSeafoodSpecial

Related to IfItSwimsItFlies and TheSkyIsAnOcean. Compare SpaceWhale, TerrestrialSeaLife, and LivingGasbag. Not to be confused with ShamuFu. Can be a type of AirborneMook. FishPeople are similarly air-dwelling sea-creatures (and if their culture has a HorseOfADifferentColor, expect it to be something like this — most likely a [[SeahorseSteed seahorse]]).

* ''Anime/AngelsEgg'': The flying coelacanth shadows.

** The released form of Unohana's zanpakutou, will it's got only one eye and it's green, is shaped like a manta ray and has baleen in its mouth.
* ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'' has a gadget, the Flying Fish Food, that when fed to fishes will make them swim through the air for prolonged periods of time. It appropriately debuts in a chapter titled "Flying Fish".

* In ''Manga/TheKajikiChefDivineCuisine'', the titular kajiki are divinely created animals that mainly resemble real life animals. Kajiki versions of marine sea life freely float about in the air as if it were an ocean with little regard for other life or human structures. The main exception shown so far is an octopus so massive in chapter 7 that its tentacles drag upon the ground as it wanders around Japan.
* ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'': One of these is the summon beast Clef uses to collect the main characters upon their first arrival in Cephiro.
* ''Anime/MegaManNTWarrior2002'' pulls this out when a virus Navi infected the robot fish in an aquarium. The fish suddenly float right out of their tanks and take to the streets.

** One of the things Haruna had [[ArtInitiatesLife sketched and brought to life]] was a flying manta ray she used to get away from one of Fate's minions. [[ShrinkingViolet Nodoka]] proved to be quite adept at piloting it too.
** The SpaceWhale / CoolAirship things that are all over Magicus Mundus.

* Manga/TokyoESP heavily features a large school of flying fish that give people superpowers

* Creator/KeithThompson has a large air whale, [[https://www.keiththompsonart.com/pages/undeadleviathan.html dead]], [[https://www.keiththompsonart.com/pages/floatingleviathan.html rotting]] away. Reminiscent of his work on Literature/Leviathan, but with more zombie.

** The Acanti are space whale often used by the Brood as spaceships.

** ''ComicBook/SubMariner'': Some writers have attempt to explain Namor's flight power along these lines -- he doesn't fly so much as he condenses the moisture around him so he can swim through the air.

** ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'': The ancient Atlanteans got around through flying vehicles shapes like fish and hammerhead sharks. [[KrakenandLeviathan The Leviathans]] likewise flew, as seen in the prologue. After Atlantis is destroyed, the remaining one moves underwater instead.
** ''WesternAnimation/Fantasia2000'': One numbers features flying whales that swim through the atmosphere and breach into space like regular whales breaching into the air.

* [[http://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff3/heights.htm "The Horror of the Heights"]], by Creator/SirArthurConanDoyle, describes a high-altitude ecology of organisms resembling deep-sea life. This served as the inspiration for the [[http://brassgoggles.co.uk/brassgoggles/200703/air-kraken-day-march-17th Air-Kraken]], a popular SteamPunk æthernet [[MemeticMutation meme]].

* ''Literature/{{Leviathan}}'': The titular creature is a living biotech airship ultimately derived from a sperm whale. It still generally resembles its original stock, albeit the size of the ''Graf Zeppelin'' and loaded with hydrogen-filled gas bladders. There are also huxleys, flying and hydrogen-filled jellyfish derivatives used as hot air balloons.
* ''Literature/AMeetingWithMedusa'' features a Jupiter inhabited by peaceful, cloud-grazing manta rays. [[spoiler: Except that they're not -- peaceful or cloud-grazing, that is. The "clouds" they feed on turn out to be enormous jellyfish which may actually be sapient.]]

* ''Literature/NaturalSelection'': The Demonray, a flying, air-breathing, implausibly intelligent, tree-climbing carnivorous manta relative from the abyss. For extra amusement, they actually try explaining (poorly) how it flies with a lot of nonsense science...

* ''Literature/SewerGasAndElectric'': Played for laughs when the mutant great white Meisterbrau pursues a victim onto dry land, then spreads its oversized pectoral fins and ''swoops'' onto the unfortunate schmuck.

** In the gas giant Bespin there are the more rayfish-like [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Velker velkers]] with ''300 meter wingspans'', which hunted the much, ''much'' bigger flying jellyfish called [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Beldon beldons]], while on a much smaller scale rawks hunted [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:Rawwk-woswfg.jpg tiny winged fish]], and a species of thranta was introduced there before their homeworld exploded.
* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' has "skyeels", which are basically ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin and fly using gas sacs. Later installments mention in passing that they use spren-assisted flight (possibly the [[GravityMaster Surge of Gravitation]], but never mentioned as such), and that the spren in question perform a similar function to every GiantEnemyCrab on the planet that would otherwise collapse under their own weight.

* ''Alien Worlds: Blue Moon'': Skywhales.

** The {{Horde of|AlienLocusts}} [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Flying Robot Stingrays]] in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead Planet of the Dead]]".

* ''Series/TheYoungOnes'': Subverted for Vyvyan, who once looked out the window, saw a shark passing by the glass, and declared it this trope and the most completely brilliant thing he'd ever seen. Then Mike spoiled it by explaining that London had flooded, meaning that the shark was only swimming, not flying.

* Music/LinkinPark's "Music/InTheEnd" music video had a whale flying in the newly greened desert.

* ''Podcast/TheAdventureZoneBalance'': [[spoiler: The Voidfish]] doesn't need water to live, and otherwise floats through the air.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Arduin}}'': Air sharks and air squid are precisely what they sound like -- otherwise normal versions of usually marine creatures that happen to swim around in midair. They do this by means of stores of lighter-than-air gasses stored in their bodies, which tend to have... explosive... reactions to lightning. There are also skyrays, which look like flying mantas but are actually flying fungus creatures.

** Cloud rays, named so not because they flies in the clouds [[GiantFlyer but because you might mistake them]] [[ThatsNoMoon for such]].

* ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' has whales, known as Suryas, that live in the corona of the sun. Since there is no material on the sun that isn't gaseous or plasmatic, it's safe to call this flight. Said whales also happen to be humans (well, mostly, there's some [[UpliftedAnimal uplifted]] [[SapientCetaceans whales]] and AIs who've sleeved in Suryas). ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' is that kind of game.

** Aside from fish, other creature types traditionally associated with the sea have appeared as sky-based creatures. [[KrakenAndLeviathan Leviathans]] have appeared as flying creatures often enough that nearly a third of all Leviathan creatures have had Flying, beginning with [[https://scryfall.com/card/mb1/1576/eater-of-days Eater of Days]] (in actuality a flying construct based on a leviathan) and [[https://scryfall.com/card/gpt/34/sky-swallower Sky Swallower]] (the first actual flying leviathan). Later, the 2016/17 expansions based on the plane of Kaladesh introduced [[https://scryfall.com/card/aer/27/aethertide-whale flying]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/kld/54/long-finned-skywhale whales]], while [[https://scryfall.com/card/c20/34/ethereal-forager a flying elemental whale]] debuted in the 2020 Commander set.

* The [[http://www.hammacher.com/Product/Default.aspx?sku=81696 Airshark]], a remotely-guided toy airship shaped like a shark or clownfish.

* ''VideoGame/BioHazardBattle'' has you fight flying ''squid'' at the very start of the opening stage. Then again, pretty much all the animals in that game have been mutated and such by a virus.

* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'' has jellyfish that can float in air. They later reappear in a [[DownTheDrain water level]], more appropriately.

* ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim'' featured fish enemies which flew by means of attached rotor blades. Said fish could be found in a level [[ToiletHumour set in the intestines]].

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'': Many UndergroundMonkey variations of this exist -- often literally underground, as there are many caves lined with water.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' had crabs and stingrays, in the desert. There was also The Veldt, where all the creatures the player had encountered so far in the game (except for most bosses [[note]] A notable exception being the [[OptionalBoss Holy Dragon]] [[/note]]) had a chance to show up in RandomEncounters. That included things like jellyfish sitting out in the savanna while suffering no ill effect.
*** It had a subversion, though -- many of the aquatic creatures that could be found in the desert actually ''lost health'' every round. Considering that at least two of them have practically no health at all, and have some great items to steal, it turns them into a MetalSlime battle.
*** And of course, Ultros. The first time everyone's favorite Octopus Royalty shows up, it's in a river. Odd for a saltwater creature, but believable. Then, in the rafters (and the main stage) of an Opera House. Then the bone-dry caves of a mountain. Then in a ''[[HighAltitudeBattle mid-air battle]]'' (the party is standing on the deck of an airship. Ultros is, uh, floating.)
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' also has them in the form of Fastitocalons, which swim through both the air and the ground.
** Whale Zombies and probably more things from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX''. To be more specific, there are the stingray-like Feather Circles (including [[FairyBattle their friendlier counterpart,) ]] Gigan Octopuses and the [[AnIcePerson two]] [[PlayingWithFire colors]] of [[PaletteSwap Vepals.]]
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'': Pugils, and the much rarer Orobon. Also in ''XI'', in the area Al'Taieu (commonly nicknamed as "sea" by the playerbase) there are various types of enemies that somewhat resemble aquatic life (which in turn are also nicknamed as sharks, goldfish, etc.) All of them are capable of floating in the air. "Phuabo" enemies, which resemble blue manta rays, actually "hide" underneath the water until you [[WalkOnWater walk over them]], at which point they surface, glide into the air, and start to attack.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'': The various types of sandfish in the sandsea, as well as the floating fish you encounter in the sewers.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'': Averted. The various seafood only appear in specific underwater battles, in which only three out of the seven [=PCs=] can participate, and on one occasion, a previously flying snake creature ends up being an underwater boss for a second beatdown. Played straight in its [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2 direct sequel]], however.
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', skyfishing, sandfishing, and ''lavafishing'' is a thing for the Fisher Job. Also, fishing in toxic atheriochemical waste. Naturally, there are also enemies like jellyfish, stingrays, and sharks that hover above the ground and have no trouble moving around to attack you. The lorebook explains that many of the aquatic monsters have a gas sack in their bodies that enable them to float without being in the water.

* ''VideoGame/FossilFighters'': As with most {{Mons}} media, aquatic vivosaurs float in midair when not submerged. [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] by fliers fighting UnderTheSea.

* In ''VideoGame/GotchaForce'', this is played with in a very weird way -- the Diver set of [[{{Mons}} Borgs]] "swim" through the air via a bubble of water constantly around them that slows down any other Borgs who hop into it.

* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'', sharks, dolphins and whatever else is underwater can become this due to a rocket glitch.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'': Some Jade Sea creatures do this, mainly the irukandji and scuttle fish. This is necessary for them, as the entirety of their home sea was converted to solid jade.

* ''VideoGame/InfiniteUndiscovery'' has one of these -- with several different PaletteSwap versions. Generally encountered on the beach, and in the desert (where they seem to swim through the sand as easily as the air).

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' have ''Thunder Loaches''. There's also one quest boss in the same chapter called the ''Thunder Quaker'', which is a flying loach. A later chapter then introduces a new enemy, the ''sharkodile'', which are half shark, half crocodile, and floats around in the landed spaces in the {{Absurdly Spacious Sewer}}s of Heimdallr.

*** The Zora mask offers the ability to glide power, albeit through a bug.

** The [[spoiler:Reapers]] were [[spoiler:built in the image of immense squid-like sea creatures referred to only as "the Leviathans"]]. There's also the hanar which are sentient jellyfish-like creatures that use technology to allow them to hover slightly above the ground.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManX4'' has Jet Stingray. Like his name suggests, he can fly around via jets.
* ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'': From the third game onwards, Flying Killers are [[PiranhaProblem piranha-like fish]] that occasionally show up to antagonize players, popping out of water surfaces and flying straight at the player in an attempt to chew them to their bones. Later levels set on ''dry land'' would sometimes have tanks which release flying fishes on the players instead. For some inexplicable reason, Flying Killers are prone to [[ImpossibleItemDrop dropping spare ammunition when killed]].

* ''VideoGame/TheOther'' series, of ''VideoGame/TheOtherAirisAdventure'' and ''VideoGame/TheOtherRosiesRoadOfLove'', as part its animated food enemies, which can float above land, somehow, with one of the enemies being "Fish Cookies".
* ''VideoGame/PajamaSam'': In ''No Need to Hide When it's Dark Outside'', Pajama Sam makes his way into a MadScientistLaboratory and find a potion book with a lot of colorful chemicals. One of the spells he can cast is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Fish From The Air]]. They swim around him for a few seconds, [[NoOntologicalInertia and then disappear as quickly as they came]].

* ''VideoGame/PerfectWorld'' has the new-ish mob Orbfish, appearing in the Tideborn Islands. They're basically [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin orb-shaped fish]] with huge bulbous eyes that, if you tame it as a pet, [[RefugeInAudacity can actually]] ''[[RefugeInAudacity fly several hundred feet above the ground with no problem whatsoever.]]''

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': All of the 3D games, particularly ''[[VideoGame/PokemonStadium Stadium]], [[VideoGame/PokemonColosseum Colosseum]], [[VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness XD]]'', and ''Battle Revolution''. Goldeen gracefully floats in the air then turns bottom-up when it's knocked out. Er, except for [[JokeCharacter Magikarp]]. The poor bastard doesn't even get this power. In the core series games, you can pull out your anglerfish Pokémon and use it to battle armadillos in the middle of the desert, and it will have the advantage. Somehow.
** Gyarados, Mantine and Mantyke justify this, being Water/Flying types.
** This is especially bizarre in the ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' sub series, since your characters follow behind you instead of being kept in balls. Let's go into a volcano and bring a goldfish with a horn on it with us. It'll do great! In an inversion, Pokémon that shouldn't have been able to breathe underwater could be taken on adventures in dungeons filled with saltwater at the bottom of the sea.
** Most of the above largely fall under GameplayAndStorySegregation and AcceptableBreaksFromReality; being unable to use the most populous type of Pokémon in an ElementalRockPaperScissors game would violate RuleOfFun. What falls under this trope from an InUniverse perspective is the Float Whale Pokémon. Wailord is '''the''' largest Pokémon by volume (tallest listed height among non-Legendaries, and proportionately long for a Pokémon based on a freaking blue whale), but surprisingly light for its size; at 14.5 meters tall, at least twice as long, and only 390 kg heavy, it's less dense than '''air'''. A Wailord flying around in Pokétopia is actually more realistic than a Wailord ''swimming in the [[VideoGame/PokemonRanger Almian]] sea''.

** Stunfisk double subverts the trope-it appears to be a fish, and can be found in water, but it's Ground/Electric type, which is likely why Cilan's is seen more often in the anime than Misty's Goldeen. [[http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/0/09/Cilan_Stunfisk_flying.png However, it just so happens to be capable of flight.]] How that works aerodynamically, we may never know.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'': With AR mode on, you can actually have a flying Seaking on Earth, sorta. Even with AR mode off, this trope is still played straight, many Water-type Pokémon appear floating above ground, sometimes far away from the nearest body of water!
* Serilly the mermaid from ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'' zig-zags the trope depending on the game. She swam through the air when she was a ''VideoGame/MadouMonogatari'' mook, but the creator eventually forgot this, pinning her underwater. Then she starts carrying a magic stone which allows her to move around out of the water. Then it gets even more flip-flop in ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoChronicle'' where her overworld model has her in her washbin, yet floats around in combat screens.

* ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryI'' had Mantrays, which are pretty much flying mantas. That cast spells. And live in a forest. In the game world's equivalent of the Alps.

* ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose''. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] since... well... ''[[MindScrew Hoo boy...]]''

* ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'': All fish in the overworld. There are a ''few'' water fish in the FarEast, but that's it. To further cement this trope's effect, if you fly your ship through a school of flying fish, you capture them with nets, and can then sell them for profit at the larger markets.

** In ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', the Egg Fleet combines this with AirborneAircraftCarrier. The Egg Fleet consists of flying battleships that resemble sharks, sawfish, and manta rays. The (huge) flagship, Final Fortress, resembles a whale shark.

* ''Franchise/StarFox'': Sector Y is [[SpaceIsAnOcean an ocean in space]], featuring giant space schools of fish, stingrays both small and large, squid and even ''amoebas''. There's also a SpaceWhale but it's friendly and only appears when certain conditions are met. Oddly enough, the boss for the level isn't anything like that, instead a hydrogen harvester spaceship. To be fair, it does resemble a tentacled creature (and its name includes "Hydra", a very small relative of the anemone).

* ''VideoGame/Stinkoman20X6'': Level 9 takes place in the sky, with Stinkoman in the Stinkowing (a ship that resembled Strong Bad's mask). The enemies include: shrimps, jellyfish, mantas, sharks, fish, clams, octopuses, anemones, and CORAL. To top off the weirdness, the boss (allegedly an octopus or squid) is a gangster with a tommy gun!

* ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'', forgive the pun, swims in this trope: Giant eels float through the sky. A partial justification is the fact that the surrogate for air in the Tower is Shinsu, something that can concentrate in certain areas, especially on higher levels of the Tower, giving everything some buoyancy.

* ''WebAnimation/FinalFantasyVIIMachinabridged'': Deconstructed. The "flying space eel" Bottomswell engages the party without the RequiredSecondaryPowers this trope otherwise mandates. [[PuffOfLogic The instant Cloud points this out]], [[CriticalExistenceFailure it dies]].
* ''Website/{{Neopets}}'': [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]]. Most of the time, legless aquatic pets, such as Kois (resembling goldfish), or most pets painted Maraquan (which will make land-based pets a more aquatic form), will be shown hovering in customization and during games such as the Altador Cup. Other times, they will be shown standing up on land, as is the case with the Shenkuu Petpet shopkeeper (a Koi). And then there's the Peophin (resembling a Hippocampus), which is the only case that gives [[JustifiedTrope an in-universe justification]], in the form of being naturally gifted in magic and using that to levitate.
* ''Website/OrionsArm'': The upper atmosphere of [[https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/5383dcaf46638 To'ul'h Prime]], a planet describable as "wet Venus", is full of floating phytoplankton analogues and a variety of animals resembling sealife like whales and jellyfish. Surface life, such as the sophont to'ul'h (resembling a cross between [[StarfishAliens starfish]] and bats) mostly lives off detritus from above the cloud layer. In the past some to'ul'h civilizations built airships and went "skywhaling" to harvest lift gasses, usually precipitating ecological disasters that would take millennia to recover from[[note]]the last skywhaling culture collapsing 7,500 years ago, with FirstContact with Terragens 4,000 years in the future[[/note]].

* ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'': Xerxes, Mozenrath's flying eel companion.

* ''WesternAnimation/DragonsRidersOfBerk'': Most of the dragons, even the most flying specialized, are still very capable swimmers, and vice-versa. [[ShownTheirWork Many even use their wings as paddles, not unlike several seabirds]]. [[FridgeBrilliance Must come in handy when fish is a major part of many species' diet]]. Most Tidal class dragons are unable to fly since their wings act like paddles and some are much bigger for their wings to prevent them to fly.

* ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'': In "Painted Windows", Hexadecimal's recreation of Dali's work had flying fish as well.
* In ''WesternAnimation/StarcomTheUSSpaceforce'', Jupiter has a thriving ecosystem of flying sea creatures. Jovian kites resemble giant manta rays, while the airwhales they prey upon resemble giant jellyfish.
* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRescueBots'': "Flobsters on Parade", an early episode where the Burnses and their bots had to deal with flying lobsters.

* Contrary to the name, neither flying fish nor flying squids count as this trope. Technically they both glide. The freshwater hatchetfish of South America, however, arguably does. It has winglike fins and powerful chest muscles, and they will flap their fins at high speed to power their leaps out of the water. Whether this counts as true flight in the sense that birds and bats do is debatable.

* "Manga/TokyoESP" heavily features a large school of flying fish that give people superpowers

** Most of the above largely fall under GameplayAndStorySegregation and AcceptableBreaksFromReality; being unable to use the most populous type of Pokémon in an ElementalRockPaperScissors game would violate RuleOfFun. What falls under this trope from an InUniverse perspective is the Float Whale Pokémon. Wailord is '''the''' largest Pokémon by volume (tallest listed height among non-Legendaries, and proportionately long for a Pokémon based on a freaking blue whale), but surprisingly light for its size; at 14.5 meters tall, at least twice as long, and only 390 kg heavy, it's less dense than '''air'''. A Wailord flying around in Pokétopia is actually more realistic than than a Wailord ''swimming in the [[VideoGame/PokemonRanger Almian]] sea''.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': Ekekehs are a type of dolphin-like fey that can levitate themselves at will, and their gills can process both air and water. They're often found floating their way through the streets of coastal cities in order to interact with terrestrial sapients, although they can only move through the air at a very slow and limited pace.

* Music/LinkinPark's "Music/InTheEnd" music video had a whale flying in the newly greened desert.

* ''VideoGame/StarFox'': Sector Y is [[SpaceIsAnOcean an ocean in space]], featuring giant space schools of fish, stingrays both small and large, squid and even ''amoebas''. There's also a SpaceWhale but it's friendly and only appears when certain conditions are met. Oddly enough, the boss for the level isn't anything like that, instead a hydrogen harvester spaceship. To be fair, it does resemble a tentacled creature (and its name includes "Hydra", a very small relative of the anemone).

* ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'': The upper atmosphere of [[https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/5383dcaf46638 To'ul'h Prime]], a planet describable as "wet Venus", is full of floating phytoplankton analogues and a variety of animals resembling sealife like whales and jellyfish. Surface life, such as the sophont to'ul'h (resembling a cross between [[StarfishAliens starfish]] and bats) mostly lives off detritus from above the cloud layer. In the past some to'ul'h civilizations built airships and went "skywhaling" to harvest lift gasses, usually precipitating ecological disasters that would take millennia to recover from[[note]]the last skywhaling culture collapsing 7,500 years ago, with FirstContact with Terragens 4,000 years in the future[[/note]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'', ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'', and ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' all feature Screamers of Tzeentch that are sometimes referred to as sky-sharks in-universe and resemble flying stingrays.
** The new Idoneth Deepkin army are undersea elves who use large sea creatures to fly through air. There is even a shipwreck that also moves onto the field with them.

* Music/LinkinPark's "In The End" music video had a whale flying in the newly greened desert.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' had crabs and stingrays, in the desert. There was also The Veldt, where all the creatures the player had encountered so far in the game (except for most bosses [[note]] A notable exception being the [[OptionalBoss Holy Dragon]] [[/note]])had a chance to show up in RandomEncounters. That included things like jellyfish sitting out in the savanna while suffering no ill effect.

** There are more traditional-looking stringrays in Nazjatar, which presumably swam when it was underwater but somehow learned to fly in the open air when the ocean was drained away from it.

* ''Series/TheYoungOnes'': Subverted for Vyvyan, who once looked out the window, saw a shark passing by the glass, and declared it this trope and the most [[CatchPhrase completely brilliant]] thing he'd ever seen. Then Mike spoiled it by explaining that London had flooded, meaning that the shark was only swimming, not flying.

* ''Website/{{Neopets}}'': [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]]. Most of the time, legless aquatic pets, such as Kois (resembling goldfish), or most pets painted Maraquan (which will make land-based pets a more aquatic form), will be shown hovering in customization and during games such as the Altador Cup. Other times, they will be shown standing up on land, as is the case with the Shenkuu Petpet shopkeeper (a Koi). And then there's the [[{{Hippocampus}} Peophin]], which is the only case that gives [[JustifiedTrope an in-universe justification]], in the form of being naturally gifted in magic and using that to levitate.

* ''Anime/MegamanNTWarrior'' pulls this out when a virus Navi infected the robot fish in an aquarium. The fish suddenly float right out of their tanks and take to the streets.

* ''Film/JourneyToTheCenterOfTheEarth'': The 2008 movie has the protagonist batting flying fish around, apparently so the filmmakers could [[PaddleballShot throw something at the audience in 3D]].

* Creator/{{Michelangelo}}'s ''The Torment of St. Anthony'' includes a flying demon that has no wings and seems to be swimming into the air by virtue of its fishy tail.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' had crabs and stingrays, in the desert. There was also The Veldt, where all the creatures the player had encountered so far in the game (except for most bosses [[note]] A notable exception being the [[BonusBoss Holy Dragon]] [[/note]])had a chance to show up in RandomEncounters. That included things like jellyfish sitting out in the savanna while suffering no ill effect.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has flying fish that appear during the rain. A similar-looking fish called the Zephyr Fish can be equipped as a pet. Duke Fishron, whom a player must fish from the ocean using a particular kind of bait, also qualifies, and is considered by most to be a difficult late-game boss - though he is [[BonusBoss entirely optional.]]

** Parodied to hell and back by "Space Invaders '95" in the food level; among other things, before the boss fight, the screen flashes with Darius' trademark siren and "Warning! Dangerous warship SUSHI PLATTER is approaching!" Then you fight a giant sushi combo platter.

* ''ComicBook/TheSandman'': Delirium's fish, which are usually used to symbolise madness, are always seen swimming through the air (or rough equivalent, in areas where there's no clear sense of place, such as her story in ''Endless Nights'').

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' has quite some examples. Cotrangl in the first game (which also return as a BonusBoss in the third game), as well as Narmer and Ketos among others in the third game.