History Main / RibcageRidge

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': The Ironborn tell stories of how the legendary Grey King killed the sea dragon Nagga and built his hall from her rib cage. Whether the stories are completely true or not, the petrified, building-sized rib cage remains; they treat it as holy ground and crown their kings there.

* ''ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'': In ''ComicBook/OldManLogan'' Logan and Hawkeye pass by two different giant skeleton landmarks: Loki pinned under a toppled Manhattan skyscraper, and Giant-Man sprawled over the interstate near the appropriately-named town of "Pym Falls".

* In the ''Franchise/XMen'' storyline ''ComicBook/TheBroodSaga'', readers discover roughly an issue in that the DeathWorld surrounding one of the alien bases was, in fact, the semi-decomposed corpse of one of the Space Whales they had enslaved as {{Living Ship}}s. To give an idea of the scale, the tips of the ribs poked out of the planetary atmosphere.
* Creator/{{Moebius}} had quite a few decorating the landscape of Arzarch.
* In ''ComicBook/OldManLogan'' Logan and Hawkeye pass by two different giant skeleton landmarks: Loki pinned under a toppled Manhattan skyscraper, and Giant-Man sprawled over the interstate near the appropriately-named town of "Pym Falls".

*** The skeletons of colossal [[KrakenAndLeviathan "Leviathans"]], giant whale-like creatures, are hidden in three areas -- the Gerudo Desert, Hebra, and Death Mountain. A group of three archeologists in a ranch northwest of Hyrule Castle have [[MultipleChoicePast mutually exclusive theories]] on how the species died out ([[LeaningOnTheFourthWall each one a nod to one of the franchise's three timelines]]) and [[SideQuest will pay Link to find their remains and take pictures]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'': In the Soul Sand Valley biomes of The Nether, there are exposed bones in the shape of ribs and skulls. These fossils can be found in the Overworld, but they are usually buried.

* ''VideoGame/IronLung'': These litter the blood ocean floor, often too large for the player to even grasp an idea of what they might have looked like. The ambiguity of what these monsters are and how they evolved to live inside a sea of human blood is part of the game's horror.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': There are several enormous kodo skeletons in Tanaris desert, a giant snake skeleton off the coast of Stranglethorn Vale, a skull of what is apparently one of the Old Gods in Darkshore (with a glowing Titan sword still embedded in it) and two giant naga-like creatures in Desolace. That's just the most famous ones, listing em all would take forever. The kodo graveyard in Desolace and the Dragonblight (dragon graveyard) in Northrend are obviously chock full of them, too. The biggest one in the game is probably off the coast of the Dragonblight, which is large enough to be seen on the map. Not as an icon like most large or important things, but as a skull and skeleton itself.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': One potential planetary anomaly is a skeleton that your survey crews initially believed to be a mountain range. It's implied to be an [[SpaceWhale Ether]] [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Drake]].

* ''VideoGame/DigimonWorldNextOrder': The Corpseway in the Bony Resort runs right under what seems to be the skeleton of an unidentified gigantic Digimon.

* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2MaskOfTheBetrayer'': You have a conversation with the "dead" god Myrkul while the entire party is standing on his breastbone.

* ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryV: Dragon Fire'': You walk down a spinal column of a giant deceased Dragon in [[LikeABadassFromHell Hades]].
* ''VideoGame/RadicalRex'' has a level called [[ElephantsGraveyard Dinosaur Graveyard]], where you have to climb up huge jumbled dinosaur skeletons. Just watch out for ''Stegosaurus'' plates and carnivore claws.

* ''VideoGame/MysticDefender'' have an area in the game where the ribcage of some unknown gigantic monster forms various platforms, which you can jump on to avoid enemy attacks.

** ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerIII'': The background scenery of battle maps in the Mountains of Mourn includes the skeletons of immense dinosaur- and mammoth-like beasts the size of hills.

** ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'': One whole layer of Hell is covered with (partially still alive) body of its former ruler, the bones forming giant mountain ranges. Likewise, the Outlands' portal town to Hell, the aptly named Ribcage, is built within the ribs of something huge and unidentified.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'': The plains and mountains of ''Skyrim'' are liberally dotted with the ribcages, spines and occasionally skulls of large animals (usually "mammoths", but there are a few troll and dragon skeletons lying around). Killing a dragon can cause this instantly (apparently eating draconic souls makes flesh disappear). The skeleton of a whale also serves as a bridge to the Hall of Valor in Sovngarde.

* ''VideoGame/{{Subnautica}}'': In the Lost River you can find the skeletons of several Reaper Leviathans that died in the briny water (or were eaten by a [[AlwaysABiggerFish Bigger Fish]]) There are also ancient fossilized remains of long-extinct creatures, including a colossal SeaSerpent that must have been over a kilometer in length.

* ''Manga/BlackClover'': The village Hage where Asta and Yuno are from has a massive skeleton of the demon god that the first Wizard King defeated.

* ''Fanfic/JurassicWorld2020'': In the prologue, the convoy drives past several ''Giraffatitan'' skeletons.

*** The skeletons of colossal [[KrakenAndLeviathan "Leviathans"]], giant whale-like creatures, are hidden in three areas -- the Gerudo Desert, Hebra, and Death Mountain. A group of three archeologists have [[MultipleChoicePast mutually exclusive theories]] on how the species died out ([[LeaningOnTheFourthWall each one a nod to one of the franchise's three timelines]]) and [[SideQuest will pay Link to find their remains and take pictures]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'': The ElephantsGraveyard is covered by immense elephant skeletons.

* ''Film/Godzilla2014'': The action is set into motion when Serizawa finds a cave where the walls are supported by the fossilized remains of a member of Godzilla's species that was infested by likewise fossilized "[=MUTO=]s".

* ''Film/KongSkullIsland'': A major battle against the skullcrawlers takes place amid the bones of Kong's family and other tremendous beasts.

* ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'': The Wii game ''Quest for Infinity'' offers a sort of variation; parts of XANA's mechanical monsters (disembodied heads, limbs, etc.) can be found littered about; you get points if you break them by shooting them or [[GoombaStomp jumping on them]].

Like [[AlienSky an oddly-colored sky with multiple suns or moons]], this is one of those surefire ways of letting the audience know that the story has taken them to a world vastly different from our own. Just stick a ginormous monster skeleton somewhere in the scenery, and presto, instant [[AlternateUniverse otherworld]]! Interestingly, the heroes almost never encounter a ''living'' monster of that type, or one [[{{Squick}} in an earlier state of decay]]. Sometimes, [[EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs dinosaur bones]] may be substituted to indicate another time period instead of another world entirely.

* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'': One of the most notable examples in the franchise comes in ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter4'' with the Primal Forest map -- one area is entirely overshadowed by the giant ribcage of some sort of gigantic serpentine monster. The [[DisconnectedSideArea secret starting location]] for this map is located on top of one of the ribs that has snapped loose from the rest of the ribcage, and is easily large enough for a [[CoOpMultiplayer full party of four hunters]].

* ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'': A variant -- returning to the site of a colossus battle shows the corpse of said colossus becoming a part of the environment. The imagery falls more into this trope with larger colossi like [[TurtlePower Basaran]] and [[GiantFlyer Phalanx]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'': Ursula lives in the skeleton of... some kind of big fish thing, overgrown with weeds. (On second viewing, knowing that those weeds are the BalefulPolymorph of everybody else who's lost in the ChainOfDeals that Ursula strings them on, the long pan down the hallway into Ursula's lair is horror.) A comic based on the movie shows the creature when it was alive. It was a monster used by a race of eel-people in their GladiatorGames, and Ursula bought its body from them after Ariel killed it.