History Main / WildChild

** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqlXMQAlhhI 23rd Pokemon movie]], ''Anime/PokemonSecretsOfTheJungle'', features another jungle boy named Koko, raised by a Zarude since infancy.

* Most children raised by Pokémon or Poke-raised are incapable of human speech or functioning in human society in ''FanFic/{{Symbiosis}}''. Which serves to underline how special Ash Ketchum and Tommy Marshall are as they are capable of speaking to humans and pokemon and could function in human society. Interestingly, Ash is capable because his pokemon adoptive father, Poison Lance knew enough about humans that he had sure that Ash had enough contact with them to learn how to speak, read and write. So while Ash has NoSocialSkills and knows the bare minimum of how humans function, he can convincingly fake being a normal child. This gives Ash the ability to speak to pokemon, has heightened endurance and sense of smell and subconscious use of [[PsychicPowers Aura]]. Tommy was [[spoiler: deliberately groomed by the Safari Zone Rangers who kept him from his biological family and made sure that he could function.]]

* [[ComicBook/FreedomFightersDCComics The Black Condor]] is a human man who was raised by condors. Who taught him to fly (yes, without wings). And then he became a US Senator. [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs I swear I'm not making this up]]. A later retcon gives him the power of flight naturally, which makes the character ''very slightly'' less loopy.

* Wrath from [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the 2003 anime version]] of ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' lived alone in the wilds of an island.

* Hendrika the Baboon Woman from the [[Literature/KingSolomonsMines Allan Quatermain]] novella ''Allan's Wife'' by Creator/HRiderHaggard.

* In ''Literature/TaleOfTheTroika'' by Creator/StrugatskyBrothers giant squids are sentient and very long-lived. As the squid Spyridon tells, their adults were wiped by pandemic around 14th century and the young ones grew unsupervised, which explains their bad behavior through much of recent human history. This segment is absent from the censored version used by translators.
* The girl Amara in ''Literature/KnowledgeOfAngels'' was raised by wolves, and is therefore used as an experiment to prove that knowledge of God is something one is born, not raised, with. The experiment proves inconclusive.
* Blanche and Nora in ''Literature/HalfLife'' had a disquieting series of encounters with Donkeyskin, a profane feral child kept penned up by her abusive father.
* Renée Fritzhaber from ''Literature/{{MARZENA}}'', she's spent most of her youth in full isolation in a [[GoMadFromTheIsolation mental insitute being experimented on by the military]], so being literate enough to read that makes her only half-wildling.

* ''Literature/{{Somewhither}}'': This describes ''all'' children on the world of Cainem, which is inhabited by immortals. Once the mother gets bored of the newborn baby (which happens quickly, especially since pretty much all children are product of rape), she tosses it into the nearest body of water (so that it won't bother people with the noise of its cries) and leaves it there to fend for itself. As a result, pretty much all children end up what would be considered feral children on Earth.
* ''Literature/TheWitchlands'': Owl is an underplayed example in that she's only been feral for about a year by the time Aeduan and Iseult find her, but she still barely speaks, prefers to go around barefoot, eats earthworms and prefers the company of mountain bats to people.
* ''Literature/ThePeculiarNightOfTheBlueHeart'': Downplayed for Lionel, who can behave like a boy but elects to act like an animal, but played straight for Marybeth when she is possessed by the ghost of the titular blue heart, to the point where even Lionel is disturbed. [[spoiler:Lionel and the blue heart's ghost, a young girl, reach an understanding with the reveal that their desire to be wild animals instead of vulnerable children is borne of trauma: Lionel was abused by his father, and the girl was accidentally killed by her brother's friends. Coming to terms with their pain allows the ghost to pass on, and Lionel to lose ''some'' of his feral mannerisms.]]
* ''Literature/ChroniclesOfAncientDarkness'': The protagonist Torak was RaisedByWolves, but only for a few months, and then raised by his father for the next 12 years. Tokoroths, on the other hand, are children abused and starved until they become empty shells suitable for DemonicPossession. They play the trope much straighter, though it's debatable whether they're even children after the demons take over.
* In Harry Turtledove's ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' series, the alien species "The Race" is precocial, able to walk and even hunt almost as soon as they hatch from their eggs. Despite this, they only develop language and complex reasoning skills after several years. They describe their childrearing habits as more like domestication than what humans do, since they spend most of that time keeping the hatchlings from injuring each other or escaping into the wild until they are old enough to be educated. Though rare, there are documented occurrences of hatchlings being discovered in the wild years after hatching, where they have grown into functional wild animals.
* ''Literature/MeWhoDoveIntoTheHeartOfTheWorld'': After Lorena Nieto's daughter Karen turned out to be mentally disabled, Lorena made no effort to educate or parent her, and completely ignored her when she wasn't beating her. For the first nine years of her life, Karen roamed the property naked and covered in filth, communicating only in grunts. Lorena's staff didn't even know Karen was hers - they thought she was a stray Lorena allowed to sleep in her basement. It isn't until after Lorena's death that Karen is taken in by her aunt Isabelle, who teaches her to talk.

* ''Series/TheSixMillionDollarMan'' episode "The Wolf Boy".

* ''Series/ThunderInParadise'' used a RecycledScript from the ''Manimal'' episode above, only this time the wild child was a young boy.
* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E24TimesOrphan Time's Orphan]]" involves [[TheWoobie Chief O'Brien]]'s young daughter, Molly, accidentally falling through some kind of temporal anomaly into a prehistoric wilderness. By the time they're able to pull her back through, she has experienced something like 10 years there entirely alone. She barely remembers her own name or how to speak, and behaves much like the stereotypical cavewoman might be expected to. After a difficult period of not being able to adjust, and seeing how happy she was in a holographic recreation of her wilderness home, [[TearJerker O'Brien and his wife realize that she just doesn't belong there anymore and take her back to the anomaly for her own well being]]. [[TimeyWimeyBall Fortunately, she somehow arrives in the past only a few minutes after Young Molly first arrived]] and is able to send her younger self back through to the future, happily reuniting the O'Briens with their daughter mere moments after they thought they had to give her up forever. The happy ending is [[BittersweetEnding tempered]] when the adult Molly ceases to exist because of the paradox.
* ''Series/KamenRiderAmazon'': TheHero, Daisuke, was raised by a tribe in the Amazonian jungle. This is best reflected in his fighting style, which often sees him graphically sever the limbs of his opponents.
* There was a made-for-TV movie that became a short-lived TV series called ''Series/{{Lucan}}'' in the late seventies that was about a boy raised by wolves for the first ten years of his life, then by research scientists for the next ten. He struck out on his own and had to deal with human society while using and controlling his wolfen instincts and physical gifts. "Lucan" was actually his pronunciation of "you can," after he solved a puzzle correctly and the scientist helping him pointed to it and said those words.
* Series/ThePretender episode "Wild Child". A feral girl is found near a wood pile, and Jarod poses as a psychiatrist to figure out her story.
** The girl (Jarod names her "Violet") was in a plane crash as a young child, and was the only survivor. A psychologist from a nearby university found her shortly afterwards. Instead of helping her, he set up a bunch of video cameras so he could study her behavior of how she survives in this environment. This seems to be adapted from ''Film/{{Nell}}'' (1993); one of the doctors studied Nell this way. Violet was the name of Nell's mother.
* The ''Series/{{Gunsmoke}}'' episode called "The Lost" features a wild child, a young girl. Kitty is wandering in the badlands after being injured in a stage wreck. The girl has lived out there for several years and is believed to be the sole survivor of an epidemic that killed everyone in her village. After the girl is rescued from the hillbillies, Kitty takes her to the home of Mrs. Roniger (Peggy Rea), a recurring character who runs a kind of unofficial orphanage for seventeen children (including the triplets from "Baker's Dozen") and believes "children ain't no problem, they just need to be loved." The girl is was then captured by some not-so-nice people who planned sell her for money. If the little girl hadn't made noise on the way through Dodge, and attracted Festus' attention, they might have gotten away with it.
* In ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSuperboy'' episode "The Road to Hell", Superboy ends up in an alternate universe where his ship landed in the jungle instead of in Smallville, leading to the alternate Kal-El becoming this.

%%* (Zero-context example) Second edition TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons had this in one of the splat-books as an option for some players.
* ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'': Characters with the [[SkillScoresAndPerks flaw]] "Feral Upbringing" spent their childhood in the wilderness with no human company, so they begin adulthood with no knowledge of human society [[NeverLearnedToTalk or even speech]].

* Sticks the Badger from ''VideoGame/SonicBoom''. While she speaks just fine, she has [[CloudCuckoolander a lot of loopy ideas]] that come from living alone, and is extremely paranoid. Though sometimes, her crazy ideas [[TheCuckoolanderWasRight turn out]] [[ProperlyParanoid to be right]].

* In ''VideoGame/TheFlameInTheFlood'', Scout can encounter a pair of "Feral Children", who are actually quite friendly and helpful despite their shabby appearance and [[YouNoTakeCandle their poor grasp of English]].

* Razor from ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' has lived most of his life amongst wolves and away from humans in Wolvendom, a secluded valley west of Mondstadt city. He ''can'' communicate very well in the human language, but his dialogue is notably stilted.

* ''WesternAnimation/SkullIsland2023'': [[Characters/MonsterVerseHumans Annie]] has been living in [[IsleOfGiantHorrors Skull Island]]'s archipelago, cut off from other human contact, since she was six years old, surviving with the aid of a creature named "Dog" that she befriended. As a result, at age 16, Annie is socially stunted, aggressive, and wary of human contact.

* Trowa Barton from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' is a lesser version of this. The prequel manga ''Episode Zero'' shows him being thrown from his family's carriage as a baby, followed by an AgeCut that shows him as a young boy, at which point he's taken in by a mercenary group. His limited human interaction serves to explain several aspects of his nature like his [[TheStoic stoicism]], [[TheQuietOne not speaking much,]][[note]]He didn't even know how when the mercs found him.[[/note]] [[FriendToAllLivingThings close understanding of animals]], and [[NoNameGiven having no name of his own]].
* ''Manga/DragonBall'': Son Goku is a bit of a subversion. His adoptive grandfather raised him but eventually got crushed under the foot of Goku, who had turned into a giant ape after seeing the full moon, so Goku spent a lot of his early childhood in a forest, picking up traits and instincts of the animals around him. Because of this, he has NoSocialSkills by the time Bulma finds him.
* Miata from ''Manga/{{Claymore}}'' is considered to be "emotionally unstable" by the [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Organization]], and how! Because of the trauma she suffered when her parents were killed, most likely by Yoma ([[CrapsackWorld the same backstory almost all Claymores share, really]]), she acts like this. [[NeverLearnedToTalk She can barely talk and only like a small child would]], she's ''extremely'' violent (and also extremely powerful) and because of that the Organization has isolated her from the rest of the warriors. She eventually bonds with Clarice, the weakest warrior of her generation, believing that Clarice is actually her mother. [[spoiler:Eventually Miata's mind is healed in the final chapters of the manga, but it would take Clarice to sacrifice her life for this to happen]].

* San of ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'' was RaisedByWolves (who also happen to be minor gods), and she's developed into a MisanthropeSupreme NatureLover who renounces her humanity and identifies as a wolf.

* Another aquatic example: the British comic character ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishboy_%28comic%29 Fishboy]]'' is, as the name suggests, ''raised by fish'' and ''learns how to breathe underwater''. Really.
* The Black Condor is a human man who was raised by condors. Who taught him to fly (yes, without wings). And then he became a US Senator. [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs I swear I'm not making this up]]. A later retcon gives him the power of flight naturally, which makes the character ''very slightly'' less loopy.
* Subverted by Teon a.k.a. Primal from ''ComicBook/GenerationHope''. He acts as if he's Hope's pet dog most of the time, rarely says anything but "fight", "flight", "eat", "mate", and "woof", and does horribly on intelligence tests, but then he aces them when she offers him a snack, and when his parents sue the X-Men for custody of him, he takes the stand and gives an eloquent speech convincing them to drop the suit. It turns out he had a normal human upbringing and was actually a computer geek before his mutation turned him into a being of pure instinct concerned primarily with survival and mating.

* A group of feral children appeared in an issue of ''ComicBook/HackSlash''. A scientist had collected them together and tried to raise them to fit in with human society. They're all under 12, and all but Romulus is incapable of human speech. The experiment goes well enough until [[spoiler:a drug treatment intended to help their rehabilitation along instead causes them to regress into more and more aggressive, primal behavior. Eventually they kill and eat their foster father.]]
* Franchise/{{Batman}} went up against one in ''Legends of the Dark Knight'' #115. He had been orphaned and horribly scarred in a boating accident as a young boy many years earlier and had taken refuge in the cave system underneath Wayne Manor.
* ''Comicbook/{{Aquaman}}'' character Dolphin fell overboard of a cruise ship as a young girl, was rescued by dolphins, and then made amphibious by [[DisposableSuperheroMaker aliens whose exact motives have never been elaborated on]]. She escaped from them and roamed the ocean for years, until she was found as a teenager by an oceanography vessel.
* ''ComicBook/{{Irredeemable}}'': Late in the story, it's revealed that, [[spoiler:when he was a kid, the Plutonian crashed a car that was transporting him in the woods outside Coalville, and was the only survivor. From there, he spent a few years living in a nearby warehouse, feeding on the wild animals in the woods]]. During this time, [[spoiler:he became a local UrbanLegend in the area, known as the "Coalville Wolf Boy"]]. One day, [[spoiler:while out in the woods, Tony attacked a young Evan Cousins (who would grow up to become Max Damage), and his female friend]]. It's one of the reasons why [[spoiler:Max Damage is a BerserkButton for him. Max is the only person who knows about that, and is a constant reminder to Tony that he's not a paragon of perfection]].
* ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'' established in one of the original series' backup stories that [[Characters/TeenTitansBeastBoy Beast Boy]] briefly lived by himself in the wild a short time after he was orphaned.

* Most children raised by Pokémon or Poke-raised are incapable of human speech or functioning in human society in ''FanFic/{{Symbiosis}}''. Which serves to underline how special Ash Ketchum and Tommy Marshall are as they are capable of speaking to humans and pokemon and could function in human society. Interestingly, Ash is capable because his pokemon adoptive father, Poison Lance knew enough about humans that he had sure that Ash had enough contact with them to learn how to speak, read and write. So while Ash has NoSocialSkills and knows the bare minimum of how humans function, he can convincingly fake being a normal child. This gives Ash the ability to speak to pokemon, has heightened endurance and sense of smell and subconscious use of [[PsychicPowers Aura]]. Tommy was [[spoiler: deliberately groomed by the Safari Zone Rangers who kept him from his biological family and made sure that he could function.]]

* Ryuuko in [[spoiler: chapter 5]] in this [[http://archiveofourown.org/works/4872469/chapters/11224633 fic]] titled ''FanFic/CellarSecrets'', due to her mother keeping her in the cellar. To elaborate further, she moves on all fours because of apparent developmental or acquired abnormalities to her legs and or spine due to being caged (which didn't leave her much room to move around) and she knows language, as she is heard speaking it, but has to learn how to use it in syntaxes, thus she communicates in gestures and has made up her own syntaxes. Along that line, she is frightened of a lot of things, is quick to swat at or hit someone, is somewhat like a baby, doesn't prefer to wear shoes but is known to tolerate socks and, unlike some feral children, she doesn't seem to mind sleeping on a mattress or toddler bed. Her chapter after her introduction mentions her as swatting at one doctor, biting another, and almost hurt herself trying to get away from them.

* ''Fanfic/OneYoungHero'': The titular young hero, Riolu (Taiki in the Kai version). His father Lucario (Tairo in the Kai version) sent him into the forest when he was very young to kill all the wild Pokémon in the forest as they were "savages" that needed to be eliminated, but Riolu (Taiki) suffered a TapOnTheHead by a stray Rock Throw attack and decided to live along with the wild Pokémon in the forest before the protagonists found him. Suprisingly, he seems to have a pretty good grasp on language, unlike other examples of this trope.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Creator/FrancoisTruffaut's ''Film/TheWildChild'', about the famous [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyron Victor of Aveyron]], who lived alone in the forest from early childhood until the age of about twelve. The film is about the process of educating him.

* The live-action adaptation of ''Film/TheFlintstones'': Bamm-Bamm Rubble was one of these, raised by wild mastadons.
* The title feral woman in ''Film/TheWoman'', who gets kidnapped by a suburban family in an attempt to make her more "civilized".
** The sequel ''Film/{{Darlin}}'' shows that after living with the Woman for several years, Darlin' Cleek has become feral as well. Since she had spent her early years in civilization, when she is found, after some struggle, she is able to speak again.
* The Turkish movie, ''Aslan Adam'' or ''Film/LionMan'', has the main character, a prince abandoned in the woods as a baby after his father was killed by invaders. Adopted by a pride of lions, the hero grows up in the wilderness, gaining SuperStrength and razor-sharp claws as he reached adulthood, and eventually goes back to civilization to exact his revenge.

* Creator/WernerHerzog's ''Film/TheEnigmaOfKasparHauser'' is a dramatization of the story of Germany's most famous WildChild. Possibly a subversion, see Real Life below.
* ''Film/{{Mama}}'' has two sisters, Victoria and Lily, who live in an abandoned cabin in the woods for a few years. As a result, when they are finally found, they are covered in dirt and scuttling around on all fours like dogs. The younger sister has minimal language skills and still snarls and snaps at people after initially being brought back to civilization. The older sister had more experience living with normal humans, so she recovers faster.

* Laura in ''Film/{{Logan}}'' is virtually feral at the outset, being completely nonverbal and having a countenance and demeanor that one would associate with a predatory animal. Her response to a convenience store clerk trying to stop her from shoplifting is to hurl him to the ground and attempt to kill him, and before that, Gabriela desperately tried to keep a confrontation with a motel employee from escalating, as she knew full well that Laura would kill her without a second thought given the chance.
* Jason in the ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' franchise: after his mother thinks he drowned as a child he spent years surviving alone in the wild.
* The feral boy known as "The Dog" in ''Film/{{Shrooms}}''.

* In ''Literature/No6'', Inukashi ([[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep literally "dog-lender" or "dogkeeper"]]) was raised by a mother dog seemingly since he was a baby. He refers to said mother dog as his [[ParentalTitleCharacterization "mom"]] and to her puppies as his brothers and sisters. However, unlike nearly all RealLife examples of this trope, he is apparently able to speak and interact easily with other people, though he is also able to [[SpeaksFluentAnimal communicate well with his dogs]].
* The [[UrExample earliest novel]] to feature this trope was the 12th-century Arabic novel ''Literature/HayyIbnYaqzan'', also known as ''Philosophus Autodidactus'', where the protagonist Hayy is [[RaisedByWolves raised by a gazelle]] on a DesertedIsland.
** The 13th-century Arabic novel ''Literature/TheologusAutodidactus'' also features a protagonist, Kamil, raised in isolation from humanity on a deserted island.
* Mowgli from ''Literature/TheJungleBook'' is arguably the TropeCodifier.
* Literature/{{Tarzan}} as a child is an example of this, though he grows up to be an adult before he does much. He lives among apes and learns to act much like them -- but, in the original, it's {{downplayed}} by the fact that these apes can talk their own language. The original Tarzan also teaches himself to read before he ever encounters other humans, so that tells something of how his mind is perfectly sharp even if he acts in some ways like a wild animal.

* To a degree, Rickon Stark from ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', as a consequence of [[spoiler: losing his whole family, forming a mental bond with a borderline-feral wolf and having a amazon Wildling for a nanny]]. Which is actually pretty good preparation for Westeros politics.

%% The Thing from ''Literature/{{Gormenghast}}''.
* Big Alice Eyesore in ''Literature/TheWarBetweenThePitifulTeachersAndTheSplendidKids'' is raised by ''hyenas'' after her ''[[ThereAreNoTherapists child psychologist]]'' parents [[ParentalAbandonment forget/abandon]] her at a wild animal park and decide that the hyenas are better equipped to deal with Alice and her [[SlasherSmile all-canine teeth]]. Her parents eventually return for her when she's about 11 or 13, but after learning that child psychology doesn't work on hyenas they abandon her for good at the [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors horrible school]] where the story takes place. [[spoiler:By the end of the book, Alice has been brought back from the dead (cryogenically frozen/coma?) and returned to her hyena family. She is the only kid who hasn't been [[TransformationRay forcibly aged]] or driven underground. She achieves a symbolic victory by climbing the highest tree in the park and declaring herself leader of her pack.]]
* The protagonist in Roy Meyers' ''Literature/DolphinTrilogy'' is raised by dolphins thanks to a whole string of {{Contrived Coincidence}}s. First of all he is born with the mutant ability to hold his breath for long periods of time and survive greater depths than normal humans, and then his parents are killed in an explosion that causes him to be blown into the water just as a pod of dolphins arrive, one of which just happens to be a recently-bereaved and lactating mother...
* ''Literature/TheEmpiriumTrilogy'': Simon turns into a feral child after spending a year on the desolate mountain he was transported to. He quickly learns how to kill and skin animals in order to feed himself.
* The raised-by-dolphins idea is done much more realistically in Karen Hesse's ''Literature/TheMusicOfDolphins''. The novel opens with the girl being recovered by humans and taken from her island. She is brought to a rehabilitation center in Boston, and placed with another feral child. The main character begins making progress, possibly due to her somewhat older age when she was orphaned. [[spoiler:However, she regresses when she is unable to adapt to the many rules of human society, and returns to her dolphin pod at the end.]]

* In ''Literature/TheNightOfTheTriffids'', Christine's father died when she was four, and she survived alone in the wilderness until the protagonist found her a decade later.
* The titular character from the short story ''Literature/WolfAlice'' by Creator/AngelaCarter. She is raised from infancy by wolves and captured by a hunter who kills her "mother", then given to a group of nuns who attempt to domesticate her. They eventually decide she cannot be integrated into society and instead send her to live with a mysterious werewolf/vampire called the Duke. Though she performs some basic human behaviour, she never learns to speak.

* Parodied by ''Website/TheOnion'', with a girl raised by [[http://www.theonion.com/video/girl-raised-from-birth-by-wolf-blitzer-taken-into,17714/ Wolf Blitzer]].

* Second edition TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons had this in one of the splat-books as an option for some players.

Characters who are [[RaisedByWolves raised by fictional animals]] are usually much better off than these kids: If a Wild Child was literally raised by animals, it will be painfully obvious that those animals were no substitute for real parents, with the child showing markedly animalistic behavior, such as a tendency to bite anyone who crosses their gaze wrong or who intrudes into their personal space, or never having learned to walk upright. Sometimes this can be [[PlayedForLaughs played for comedy]], with less harmful behaviors like inappropriate sniffing or choosing to "mark" territory.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheWildThornberrys'':
** Donnie. It's [[LostInMediasRes eventually explained]] that he just swung on a vine into the Thornberrys' shot while they were in Borneo, and they became his foster parents when nobody could figure out who he belonged to. A TV movie eventually explores his backstory: [[spoiler:his primatologist parents were killed by poachers, and he was cared for by a mother orangutan who eventually saw the Thornberrys and urged Donnie to go with them]].
** One episode has Donnie finding a girl similar to him in the jungle who was raised by leopards.

* Fee and Foo from ''WesternAnimation/HarveyBeaks'' were separated from their parents at a very young age, then spent the next couple years with only each other in the forest, foraging for food and sleeping in the trees. However, once they moved to Littlebark, the Beaks family were willing to provide for the twins when needed, making their outdoor living more of a voluntary lifestyle that doesn't keep them from regular social interaction.
* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', where Dr. Doofenshmirtz spent a significant portion of his childhood being raised by wild ''ocelots'' instead of his [[ComedicSociopathy comedically unnurturing]] parents. Enough time, as it happens, to be considered an ocelot on legal paperwork. And the ocelots are all but stated to have been considerably more caring than his actual parents, since he never once comes up with an evil scheme based around that part of his life.

Although, if the child does live long enough, they can mature into either a TarzanBoy or JunglePrincess. RaisedByWolves is a subset of this. Compare with RaisedByOrcs. Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildChild 2008 film of the same name]], which is actually about a BrattyTeenageDaughter.

* In ''LightNovel/No6'', Inukashi ([[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep literally "dog-lender" or "dogkeeper"]]) was raised by a mother dog seemingly since he was a baby. He refers to said mother dog as his [[ParentalTitleCharacterization "mom"]] and to her puppies as his brothers and sisters. However, unlike nearly all RealLife examples of this trope, he is apparently able to speak and interact easily with other people, though he is also able to [[SpeaksFluentAnimal communicate well with his dogs]].

If the child lives long enough, they can mature into either a TarzanBoy or JunglePrincess. RaisedByWolves is a subset of this. Compare with RaisedByOrcs. Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildChild 2008 film of the same name]], which is actually about a BrattyTeenageDaughter.

If the child lives long enough, they can mature into either the TarzanBoy or JunglePrincess. RaisedByWolves is a subset of this. Compare with RaisedByOrcs. Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildChild 2008 film of the same name]], which is actually about a BrattyTeenageDaughter.

If the child lives long enough, they can mature into a NatureHero. RaisedByWolves is a subset of this. Compare with RaisedByOrcs. Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildChild 2008 film of the same name]], which is actually about a BrattyTeenageDaughter.

Subset of NatureHero, and RaisedByWolves is a subset of this. If the child lives long enough, they can mature into either the MountainMan, TarzanBoy or JunglePrincess. Compare with RaisedByOrcs. Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildChild 2008 film of the same name]], which is actually about a BrattyTeenageDaughter.

If the child lives long enough, they can mature into the NatureHero. RaisedByWolves is a subset of this. Compare with RaisedByOrcs. Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildChild 2008 film of the same name]], which is actually about a BrattyTeenageDaughter.

If the child lives long enough, they can mature into the tougher and more virtuous TarzanBoy or JunglePrincess. RaisedByWolves is a subset of this. Compare with RaisedByOrcs. Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildChild 2008 film of the same name]], which is actually about a BrattyTeenageDaughter.

If the child lives long enough, they can mature into the tougher and more virtuous NatureHero. RaisedByWolves is a subset of this. Compare with RaisedByOrcs. Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildChild 2008 film of the same name]], which is actually about a BrattyTeenageDaughter.

Growing up in a jungle can lead to a character becoming the very different NatureHero or JunglePrincess. RaisedByWolves is a subset of this. Compare with RaisedByOrcs. Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildChild 2008 film of the same name]], which is actually about a BrattyTeenageDaughter.

* The protagonist in Roy Meyers' ''Literature/TheDolphinTrilogy'' is raised by dolphins thanks to a whole string of {{Contrived Coincidence}}s. First of all he is born with the mutant ability to hold his breath for long periods of time and survive greater depths than normal humans, and then his parents are killed in an explosion that causes him to be blown into the water just as a pod of dolphins arrive, one of which just happens to be a recently-bereaved and lactating mother...

* The protagonist in Roy Meyers' ''Literature/DolphinTrilogy'' is raised by dolphins thanks to a whole string of {{Contrived Coincidence}}s. First of all he is born with the mutant ability to hold his breath for long periods of time and survive greater depths than normal humans, and then his parents are killed in an explosion that causes him to be blown into the water just as a pod of dolphins arrive, one of which just happens to be a recently-bereaved and lactating mother...

** There's also Tobo/Tommy, from "The Kangaskhan Kid" in season one of [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} the anime]] and ''Manga/TheElectricTaleOfPikachu'' manga. He fell out of his parents' helicopter and was raised by Kangaskhan in the Safari Zone. But he can still speak when Ash and co come around. In the original Japanese, he rather infamously asks Misty if he can nurse from her. In the end, his parents join him with his adopted family.

* The [[UrExample earliest novel]] to feature this trope was the 12th-century Arabic novel ''Literature/HayyIbnYaqzan'', also known as ''Philosophus Autodidactus'', where the protagonist Hayy is [[RaisedByWolves raised by a roe deer]] on a DesertedIsland.

* The [[UrExample earliest novel]] to feature this trope was the 12th-century Arabic novel ''Literature/HayyIbnYaqzan'', also known as ''Philosophus Autodidactus'', where the protagonist Hayy is [[RaisedByWolves raised by a gazelle]] on a DesertedIsland.

** An inverted case in the [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} anime]]. A wild Meowth learned human language, how to walk like a human, social skills and other impressive knowledge. He would eventually join Team Rocket, but he is still technically a wild Pokémon.

* [[Manga/DragonBall Son Goku]] is a bit of a subversion. His adoptive grandfather raised him but eventually got crushed under the foot of Goku, who had turned into a giant ape after seeing the full moon, so Goku spent a lot of his early childhood in a forest, picking up traits and instincts of the animals around him. Because of this, he has NoSocialSkills by the time Bulma finds him.

* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Time's Orphan" involved [[TheWoobie Chief O'Brien's]] young daughter, Molly, accidentally falling through some kind of temporal anomaly into a prehistoric wilderness. By the time they were able to pull her back through, she had experienced something like 10 years there entirely alone. She barely remembered her own name or how to speak and behaved much like the stereotypical cavewoman might be expected to. After a difficult period of not being able to adjust, and seeing how happy she was in a holographic recreation of her wilderness home, [[TearJerker O'Brien and his wife realize that she just doesn't belong there anymore and take her back to the anomaly for her own well being]]. [[TimeyWimeyBall Fortunately, she somehow arrives in the past only a few minutes after Young Molly first arrived]] and is able to send her younger self back through to the future, happily reuniting the O'Briens with their daughter mere moments after they thought they had to give her up forever. The happy ending is [[BittersweetEnding tempered]] when the adult Molly ceases to exist because of the paradox.

* The [[UrExample earliest novel]] to feature this trope was the 12th-century Arabic novel ''Hayy ibn Yaqzan'', also known as ''Philosophus Autodidactus'', where the protagonist Hayy is [[RaisedByWolves raised by a gazelle]] on a DesertedIsland.
** The 13th-century Arabic novel ''Theologus Autodidactus'' also features a protagonist, Kamil, raised in isolation from humanity on a deserted island.