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  • American Horror Story: Hotel: Countess/Elizabeth Johnson has a snake motif. The Countess has a snake ring and a snake brooch. Iris refers to Elizabeth as a snake in "Mommy".
  • Better Call Saul: Lalo compares Jimmy to a cockroach, calling him "La Cucaracha". He means this as a compliment, expressing his confidence in Jimmy's survival instincts. Later, in "Plan and Execution", the sight of a cockroach scuttling past inspires him to pay a visit to Jimmy.
  • Breaking Bad: Jesse is associated with dogs due to his loyalty and desire for approval and affection.
  • Bridgerton: Bee. As it is revealed to be the animal that stung and killed the previous Bridgerton patriarch, Edmund.
  • Cobra Kai:
    • Johnny and Kreese both use plenty of snake imagery in their teachings, with Johnny teaching his students to break chokeholds by "slithering" and Kreese comparing Cobra Kai to a bruminating rattlesnake, hiding and dormant but ready to awaken and strike at a moments notice.
    • In a meta-sense, snakes are associated with evil and venom in the west, but in Japan, they are considered symbols of rebirth and transformation. The "Cobra Kai"-dojo provides plenty of all of these, for better and worse.
    • Eli Moskowitz rebrands himself as "Hawk" to draw attention from his cleft palette reconstruction scar by growing a mohawk and giving himself a hawk motif. He gets a full back tattoo of a hawk, and his Finishing Move (a superman punch) comes with the cry of a red-tailed hawk.
  • Criminal Minds: Gideon loves birds and is associated with them. When his successor Rossi debuts, the first thing he does is shoot a bird, to indicate that he's nothing like Gideon.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "The Masque of Mandragora" associates the Fourth Doctor with the lion, with a nice scene of him making the 'rampant' pose from heraldry while wearing a lion mask. He has a mane of hair, a powerful deep 'roaring' voice, big teeth and plenty of regal charisma. There may also be an allusion to his Britishness — a lion appears on the British Royal Family's crest, and the Doctor's line while playing the lion is Remember the French at Agincourt! (a battle they lost to the British).
    • Lampshaded in "Blink", in which Muggle Sally Sparrow's best friend, Kathy Nightingale, advises they start a detective company based on their surnames. Sally says that that sounds too ITV.
    • "It Takes You Away": Frogs. It turns out that Grace loved frogs, treasuring a frog necklace Graham gave her. And in the ending, the Solitract takes the form of a talking frog with Grace's voice.
  • El Chapulín Colorado: The title means Red Grasshopper in Spanish, and his uniform and some of his superpowers are related to the insect.
  • El Chavo del ocho: Several of the nicknames given to the characters are based in animals and related to the person’s physical appearance, of course this nicknames are intended to be derogatory for the characters:
    • Don Ramon: Cara de chimpancé rabioso (rabid chimp's face) for his ape-like traits and Lombriz de agua puerca (dirty water earthworm) for his thinness.
    • Doña Florinda: Patas de canario (canary's feet) for the shape of her legs.
    • Kiko: Cachetes de marrana flaca (skinny pig's cheeks) because of his big cheeks.
    • Chilindrina: Pulga (flea) for her small size and Tarantula for her personality.
      • Exceptions are Ñoño (a reference to the pig’s squeal in Spanish, equivalent to Oink) and Profesor Jirafales (Giraffe) both have the animal motif in their official name and are not offended by it, they do have some other offensive nicknames.note 
  • Elementary: Deliberately uses bees to represent Sherlock's relationships with people and tortoises as a metaphor to his friendship with Watson.
  • Fargo: Season one has a motif of predators, particularly wolves. The widow Hess compares her sons to wolves. Lorne Malvo notes that in mythology, the vicious Romans were raised by wolves. The local Arms Dealer has documentary footage of wolves playing on televisions in his van. A wolf is lurking around in the finale.
  • GARO: The helmets of Makai Knights are modeled after wolves baring their teeth, though a few have additional animals:
    • Zen from The One Who Shines In The Darkness has tusks on his helmet, giving him a slight resemblance to a boar.
    • Crow from Makai no Hana is, well, a crow, on top of a wolf.
  • Good Omens: All of the demons are strongly associated with a specific sort of traditionally unpleasant or "evil" animal, in some cases carrying one around on their heads.
    • Crowley himself is associated with snakes; he first walked (or slithered, anyway) the Earth in the form of the Serpent of Eden, and called himself Crawley. He's shed most serpentine traits by the modern day, but maintains slit-pupiled, snakelike eyes.
    • Beelzebub, as per her traditional role as the Lord of the Flies, has clouds of the insects buzzing around her at all times and shows up to the thwarted Armageddon wearing a fly-shaped hat.
    • Hastur and Ligur are associated with frogs and lizards, respectively, and are always seen with a toad and chameleon perched on their heads.
    • Dagon, reflecting the historical Dagon's presumed role as a sea god, has a very fishlike appearance and piscine scales on her face.
  • Gotham:
    • Oswald Cobblepot a.k.a. the Penguin. He has a beak-like nose and a distinctive waddle-limp while often wearing a formal suit. His mother is creepily overprotective of him (which is quite common among birds) and he has an antagonistic relationship with "Fish" Mooney.
    • She may not have taken the mantle of Catwoman up yet, but young Selina is seen moving like a cat as she prowls through Gotham. And feeding a cat. In one scene, she's seen playing with her locket as a cat would. And she's nicknamed "Cat" for obvious reasons.
    • Lazlo Valentin a.k.a. Professor Pyg. He places a pig mask on every cop that he kills, leaves figurines of pigs on his crime scenes, sent pig heads to the police HQ as a calling card and left live pigs with two of his victims' corpses, one of which was eaten by said pigs.
    • Bridgit Pike a.k.a. Firefly. She's given several insect like features, with her goggles resembling an insect's compound eyes, while her overall bodysuit is also very insect like.
  • Grimm: Most Wesen species are Beast Men associated with a very specific animal:
    • Bauerschwein are Pig Men, and enemies of the wolflike Blutbaden as per The Three Little Pigs.
    • Daemonfeuer are Draconic Humanoids.
    • Fuchsbau are foxlike.
    • Exceptions include Hexenbiests (eyeless hag-like creatures) and Siegbarstes (ogres).
  • Hannibal:
    • Chiyoh has birds. She's introduced hunting for quail, compares herself to a bird in a cage, and perches in a tree to shoot at Hannibal's pursuers.
    • Garrett Jacob Hobbs is nicknamed the Minnesota Shrike, since he mounts his victims' bodies on deer antlers and later eats them. Shrikes (or "butcher birds") are birds that are known for impaling their prey on sharp objects like thorns or barbed wire.
    • Mason Verger has pigs. His family owns a chain of slaughterhouses, Margot mentions his "understanding of piggishness", and much of his childhood was spent around them. Perhaps best of all, Mason's nose post-disfigurement resembles a pig's snout.
  • Impractical Jokers: Murr is frequently compared to ferrets.
  • Kamen Rider: Most incarnations have an insect or arachnid theme; in some series it's obvious (such as Kamen Rider Kabuto, where the characters' Transformation Trinkets are their theme creature) while others are less so.
    • If anything, the original series kinda flipped this on its head: the first Kamen Rider originally had his animal theme because he was a high-jumping, super-strong Shocker cyborg who escaped before he could be brainwashed into evil, but the series was so influential it pretty much singlehandedly made grasshoppers into a symbol of heroism in Japan. This later got a lampshade in Kamen Rider Zero-One, where an antagonist designs a "powerup" for the hopper-themed main hero with the explicit intention of reminding people what grasshoppers are really like; said powerup turns out to be a uncontrollable, berserking Microbot Swarm that destroys everything in its path.
    • Kamen Rider Gaim gives a very meaningful motif to a side character: DJ Sagara, who wears several snake-skin outfits and is outright called a snake by several characters; fittingly, he's the show's Satanic Archetype.
    • Kamen Rider Build: Sento Kiryu has notable rabbit theme, starting with first kanji of his name, continuing with his default form (RabbitTank) and, of course, he is the idealistic, silly rabbit. It is a little stretch, but he also has shades of a Killer Rabbit, because he is both a flippant, excitable science nerd and a capable Combat Pragmatist.
    • Kamen Rider Geats: Ace Ukiyo is specifically compared to a fox throughout the series, being shown to be cunning and outright manipulative when dealing his others with a defining Establishing Character Moment having him outright tell someone that he just played that stories about foxes have them be known to be deceptive. Then The Reveal that he's really over 2,000 years old via reincarnation, which is in line with kitsune from old Japanese folk lore, and when's he's brought back from the dead, something that gets directly brought up by Ace when he's brought back to life, considering himself similar to that of a spirit.
  • Kings: Seems to have a new one every episode, from butterflies to pigeons to deer.
  • The League of Gentlemen: Tubbs & Edward have porcine features, live in filth, and Tubbs even breast-feeds a piglet in one scene. Also, Harvey Denton is obsessed with & raises toads, and his appearance and household reflect this.
  • Lost Love in Times: Butterflies for all of the sorceresses, and silver or gold butterflies for Qing Chen in particular.
  • Once Upon a Time: In the pilot, there is a swan on Henry's night light and on the room key that Granny gives to Emma. Particularly poignant since Snow White has an affinity with birds and she is Emma's mother and Henry's grandmother.
  • Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Jafar's snake motif is carried over, and even increased, as not only is he still carrying his Serpent Staff, his clothes are actually textured to look like reptile skin. He turns out to have inherited/stolen the snake motif from his former mentor Amara.
  • ''Nevertheless: Butterflies appear frequently throughout the central romance. Na-bi's name means "butterfly". Her love interest Jae-eon has a butterfly tattoo, makes a butterfly mixed-media sculpture, draws butterflies on womens' arms as a pick-up move, and keeps butterflies in his home. He calls Na-bi "his butterfly" when she comes over.
  • People of Earth: Deer are a recurring motif of the series, but especially early on. Protagonist Ozzie has memories of hitting a deer, which translate into surreal dreams and hallucinations in which said deer appear as a talking animal to him. The Star Crossed group explains that having vague memories of hitting animals are a common way alien abductions are covered, and Ozzie's memory wasn't properly erased, which is why he keeps seeing the deer he thinks he hit.
  • The Peripheral (2022): Bees, for Cherise Nuland. When Flynne, through Peripheral Burton, first lays eyes on her, Aelita warns her away, describing her as "the queen bee of this entire vile hive". The logo of the Research Institute, which she leads, is a honeycomb-like shape made up of hexagons, she keeps bees with an apiary serving as her inner sanctum, and she kills Grace by using pheromones to incite a swarm of bees to sting her to death. Her outfits tend to feature a splash of gold or other honey-like colours too.
  • Power Rangers / Super Sentai: Zords are often based on animals, while rangers' uniforms and weapons may allude to animals in their design or decoration.
    • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers:
      • Red Ranger: Tyrannosaurus, Dragon, Ape. The helmet’s visor is surrounded by a narrow band of silver zig-zags, invoking a T-Rex’s teeth.
      • Black Ranger: Mastodon, Lion, Frog. The helmet has silver tusk markings on each side of the visor and a nose guard resembling a trunk. The Power Ax has a long, tubular handle capable of firing power bursts, similar to how a mastodon could absorb and release water from its trunk.
      • Blue Ranger: Triceratops, Unicorn, Wolf. The helmet has three, horn-like markings on the crown, above the visor. The Power Lance is a double-ended polearm whose three prongs on each end invoke a Triceratops’ horns.
      • Yellow Ranger: Sabretooth Tiger, Griffin, Bear. The helmet has slanted, feline eye markings above the visor and fangs near the edges of the visor itself. The Power Daggers are a pair of knives that invoke the large, canine teeth of the animal.
      • Pink Ranger: Pterodactyl, Firebird, Crane. The helmet’s visor has a narrow, triangular protrusion between the eyes, invoking a beak. The Power Bow has an angular stave - the main body of the weapon - which resembles outstretched wings when viewed from above.
      • Green Ranger/White Ranger: Dragon, Tiger. The Green Ranger helmet has similar zig-zag patterns to the Red Ranger, again invoking teeth. Saba, a talking saber wielded by the White Ranger, has a tiger’s head as the pommel.
    • Power Rangers Zeo: Sphinx (Zeo Zord III), Bull (Zeo Zord IV), and Phoenix (Zeo Zord V).
  • Running Man: The main cast are given animal motifs fitting of their distinct personality or physical appearance.
    • The tall and awkward Gwang Soo is the giraffe.
    • Large and in Charge Jong Kook is the tiger.
    • The active Jae-suk is the grasshopper.
    • Friendly yet sneaky Ji-Hyo is the cat.
    • The smallest of the group is Ha-Ha as the penguin.
  • The Sentinel: Each Sentinel has a spirit animal that appears to guide them; Jim's is a black jaguar, and Blair's is a grey wolf.
  • Shoebox Zoo: Members were transformed into animal-shaped Living Toys. Fittingly, the proud, excitable Hunter became a horse.
  • Taboo: Birds, including the tattoos on James and Winter, Lorna Bow's canary, the woman in James' visions, the marks left by James' mother in the fireplace, the raven feathers on Salish and Zilpha's dresses, and the bird that Zilpha sees before jumping off the bridge.
  • The Tribe:
    • The Locust tribe ("Locos") are crazed anarchists whose only joy is destruction: locusts are insects infamous for causing famine and eating up crops.
    • The Mall Rats' home is reached through a sewer swarming with rats. They initially don't like the name, but reconsider after Jack points out that rats are highly intelligent creatures who live in family units. Less explicably, rats are one of the few species who aren't threatened by human civilization- and the Mall Rats' main goal is to recreate the civilization they lived in before the Virus hit.
    • The Demon Dog tribe acts like the dogs they keep, savage and greedy.
  • Stranger Things: Henry Creel is associated with spiders, especially black widows. He developed an obsession with spiders as a child, believing them to be natural predators who prey on the weak, finding a kinship in them. He uses hallucinations of spiders to torment his victims before killing them and incorporates their webs in his physical appearance as Vecna. As it turns out in the Season 4 finale, Vecna formed the Mind Flayer in the image of his drawings of a giant spider as the predator he has always born to be.
  • Watchmen (2019): Lady Trieu is frequently equated with elephants. The ivory hourglass she carries around shows elephant carvings, as does the tea set in her vivarium. The Trieu Industries logo, if you look closely, is an elephant's trunk, tusks, and ears formed to shape a stylized T. In addition, she keeps a live elephant on campus as a source for Nostalgia overdose treatment. This is doubly meaningful: Trieu's historical namesake is famous for riding an elephant in battle and trampling her enemies beneath it, and elephants are renowned for their longevity and memory: a fitting motif for a headstrong neuroscientist who studies memory.
  • Yellow Jackets: Shauna has ceramic rabbits on her kitchen counter and skins rabbits.
  • The X-Files: While Fox Mulder hates his first name, he's nevertheless equated with a fox on several occasions, such as when the sister of a serial killer with a vendetta against him leaves him the message kitsunegari, Japanese for 'fox hunt'. He's also quite sarcastic, intelligent, sly, and good at hiding his pain/frustration from others (all of which are signs of numerous different talking foxes in myths and fairy tales).

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