Mixed Animal Species Team

They're here to save the world and kick ass!

In fiction, many animals are anthropomorphic and/or sentient, and a lot of them live in a World of Funny Animals. Therefore, there are many examples of animals of different species working together and forming a team.

Groups like this may have members whose abilities are based on their real-life counterparts, or have completely different abilities that diverged those from their real-life counterparts.

An animal team can be anywhere from Nearly Normal Animals, Funny Animals, Cartoon Creatures to even Mix-and-Match Critters, but this makes the differing backgrounds and disciplines inherent. In some cases, Predator-Prey Friendship work out into this trope.

Compare with Multinational Team, as this is basically an animal version of that trope. Also compare Unusual Animal Alliance, where several animals who would be enemies work together against a greater threat. Subtrope of Party of Representatives.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Farewell, Beloved Falco, Falco Lombardi and Katt Monroe were originally members of FREE AS A BIRD, a gang of space hot-rodders, with the other members being Cool (a cat), Mousor (a mouse), and Bowsor (a reptile).

Asian Animation

• The main characters of the Mongolian series Bultsgar consist of a dog, a cat, a pig, a rabbit, and a unicorn.
• The main characters of Our Friend Xiong Xiao Mi are a bear (Xiao Mi), a penguin (Zhi Peng), a lion (Ray), an elephant (Ellie), and a moose (Muzi).

Comic Books

• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • In Sonic the Comic, Sonic is the lead member of the Freedom Fighters, which are a group of Funny Animals trying to overthrow the tyrant human Dr, Robotnik. The main cast consists of: Sonic (hedgehog), Tails (fox), Johnny (rabbit), Porker Lewis (pig), Amy (hedgehog), Tekno (canary), and Shorty (squirrel).
• Marvel Universe:
  • The Pet Avengers consists of various pets of the different superheroes in the Marvel universe. The members include Lockjaw, the dog-like alien pet of The Inhumans; Hairball, Speedball's pet cat; Lockheed, Kitty Pryde's Shoulder-Sized Dragon; Redwing, The Falcon's animal sidekick; Frog Thor, The Mighty Thor's animal counterpart; Zabu, Ka-Zar's sabretooth tiger companion; and Ms. Lion, Spider-Man's aunt's lapdog.
  • The Scavengers, the Spider-Ham version of The Avengers: the original version has Black Panda (panda), Scarlet Pooch (dog), Squawkeye (rooster), Pigeon (pigeon) and Quacksilver (duck). The incarnation that appears in Web Warriors drops Black Panda and Scarlet Pooch in favour of Captain Americat (cat), Iron Mouse (mouse), Thrr (dog) and Ant-Ant (ant).
• WE 3 is about a trio of animals: a dog ("Bandit" or "1"), a cat ("Tinker" or "2"), and a bunny ("Pirate" or "3") who were cybernetically enhanced by the government for covert military occupations.
• The Extinctioners include three cats (Alleycat, Vague, and Copycat), a fox (Starfox, no relation to the other one), weasel (Forcewave), mouse (Micro), panda (Pandamonium), ermine (Mindswipe), gorilla (Warfare), an alien (Shadowstalker), and a phoenix who poses as a rabbit (Phenix). Most other superhero teams in the setting are based around a single species or group of species like The Solar Foxes, MechaRoos, and L.A.P.D.O.G.S.
• In Star Fox, which served as the main plot of the original game, the members of Star Fox were Robin Hood-like heroes before being summoned by General Pepper to defeat Andross. Fox's Love Interest, Fara Phoenix (a fennec fox), eventually joins the team.
• The DCU:
  • Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! is a team of superpowered talking anthropomorphic animals from the Alternate Universe Earth-C. The original members were Captain Carrot (rabbit), Fastback (turtle), Rubberduck (duck), Yankee Poodle (dog), Alley-Kat-Abra (cat), and Pig Iron (pig). Two Sixth Rangers, Little Cheese (mouse) and American Eagle (yes, an eagle), added to the diversity.
  • Earth-C Minus, also from the Captain Carrot book, was home to the Justa Lotta Animals: Super-Squirrel (squirrel), Wonder Wabbit (rabbit), Bat-Mouse (who refused to reveal if he was a bat or a mouse), the Crash (turtle), Green Lambkin (sheep), Martian Anteater (anteater), Hawkmoose (moose), Zap-Panda (panda), Firestork (stork), the Item (elephant), Green Sparrow (sparrow) and Stacked Canary (canary).
  • The original Legion of Superpets in Legion Of Superheroes comprised Krypto the Superdog, Streaky the Supercat, Beppo the Supermonkey, Comet the Superhorse, and Proty the protoplasmic being. The modern-day version in Super Sons has Krypto, Streaky, Titus the Bathound, Bat-Cow, Flexi the Plastic Bird (a parrot), and Posthumous Character Clay Critter (a brown version of Proty who presumably has some connection to Clayface).
  • The Elseworld Jurassic League book has the team composed of a Brontosaurus, a Triceratops, an Allosaurus, a Velociraptor, a Baryonyx, and a Parasaurolophus.
• Downplayed in Beasts of Burden — the main crew of Beasts is usually five dogs and a cat, but they occasionally work with other creatures to fight the paranormal threats that pop up in Burden Hill.

Fairy Tales

• The Brothers Grimm German tale "The Bremen Town Musicians" is about a team up of a donkey, dog, cat, and a rooster, as all of them seek a better life after their respective owners mistreat/plan to kill them due to their age and uselessness. In "The Wandering Animals" -another version collected by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth-, the group comprises a dog, a cat, a rooster, a fox, an ox and a horse.

Films — Animated

• In The Three Caballeros, during Donald's birthday, he reunited with Jose Carioca (a parrot) and met Panchito Pistoles (a rooster), who eventually formed The Three Caballeros. This formation was also used in House of Mouse, Mickey and the Roadster Racers, DuckTales (2017), and Legend of the Three Caballeros.
• The Land Before Time is about a group of different kinds of dinosaurs who leave their home to search for the Great Valley. The narrator points out that there has never been a herd like this before, as dinosaurs tended to stay with their own kind.
• Penguins of Madagascar has the North Wind, an animal-based organization who dedicate their lives to saving other animals, consisting of Classified (wolf), Eva (owl), Short Fuse (seal), and Corporal (polar bear).
• The Herd from Ice Age consists of Manny the mammoth, Sid the ground sloth, and Diego the sabretooth tiger, who become Fire-Forged Friends while trying to return a human baby to its family. Subsequent entries in the series introduce Ellie, a mammoth raised by possums; her possum stepbrothers Crash and Eddie; Sid's grandmother; and Shira, a female sabretooth.
• The Bad Guys (2022): Much like in the books, the Bad Guys are a team of robbers which consists of different animals - a snake, a shark, a tarantula, a piranha, and a wolf as the leader.

Literature

• Animorphs: The team each have a signature morph that makes them look like this. Notably, on some occasions they all morph the same animal (cheetahs, polar bears) and nearly end in disaster.
  • Their main combat morphs are tiger, grizzly bear (sometimes elephant), red-tailed hawk, wolf, and gorilla. Ax remains in Andalite form as he's more comfortable with it (and his tail-blade comes in very useful in many situations).
  • When traveling, they usually morph birds of prey: peregrine falcon, bald eagle, red-tailed hawk, osprey, and harrier.
• Redwall: Every book has at least one of every species for protagonists (mice, moles, squirrels, otters, hares, and a badger) in various proportions. The villainous hordes also contain a wide variety of species (rats, stoats, weasels, foxes, and ferrets are the most common), although sometimes they use more uncommon species (such as a pine marten, wildcat, or wolverine) for the leader.
• Tasakeru: Much like Redwall above, the core protagonists' team has two squirrels, a fox, a badger, and a wolf. The setting's largest religion boasts faithful from seven of the eight sentient species.

Puppet Shows

• The Muppets. The Family of Choice comprises frogs (Kermit, Robin), pigs (Miss Piggy, Link, Strangepork), a bear (Fozzie), a dog (Rowlf), a chicken (Camilla), a rat (Rizzo) and an eagle (Sam), as well as vaguely or totally human characters (most of Electric Mayhem, Scooter, the Swedish Chef, Statler, Waldorf and most recently Walter) and the utterly unclassifiable (Gonzo, Animal, Uncle Deadly).

Tabletop Games

• Crimestrikers is set on Creaturia, a multi-species World of Funny Animals, so both the titular hero team and most of the criminal organizations they fight fall under this trope. The sole exception is Warlord Rasavanto's Torrent Troopers, an army of racist Fish People, and even then Rasavanto will ally himself with land dwellers (or go after "race traitors" from his own species who oppose him) to further his goals.
• Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 has Talisid and the Five Companions from the Book of Exalted Deeds: one example of each of the more prominent (and battle-ready) guardinal subraces (leonal, avoral, cervidal, equinal, lupinal, and ursinal) who together form an epic-level, divine adventuring company of sorts in Elysium (or the House of Nature, in the Forgotten Realms setting). Thanks to the nature of these celestials as warriors devoted to the highest good (and only good), Animal Jingoism is completely averted and none of the various races ever (or rarely ever) come into conflict, not even such "traditional" enemies as cats and dogs. As a result, the Five Companions also consist of several Predator Prey Friendships (Talisid, Sathia, Kharash, and Bharrai vs. Manath and Vhara), without any Carnivore Confusion (or mutual predation for cats and birds). While it is mentioned that they are "not without discord" because the interests of the different guardinals are sometimes opposed, Talisid considers all of the companions his closest friends, "bound by fierce devotion that puts mere family loyalty to shame". In particular, Duke Kharash the lupinal guardinal is given the moniker of "Talisid's Shadow" because he is "the closest companion to Talisid, sharing the Celestial Lion's passion for the hunt as well as his love for the untamed wilderness. The two are nigh inseparable..."
• Freedom City: The setting's take Justa Lotta Animals or Scavengers is Ani-Earth's Furrydom League, comprising a cat (Captain Thunderkat), a crow (Ms Corbie) two rabbits (Bunny Liberty and Johnny Rabbit), an otter (Sea Otter), two moose (Bowmoose and Morphamoose), a duck (Duck Daedalus), a squirrel (Star Squirrel) and a mouse (Dr Metropimouse).
• Pathfinder: A villainous example. It's common for packs of Savage Wolves to be composed of multiple species of wolf and wolflike monsters, although this also tends to result in a specific pecking order arising based on the members' intelligence and strength — typically, the huge and intelligent winter wolves tend to be the leaders, followed by wargs, then dire wolves, and finally common wolves.

Toys

• In the 90s, the UK figurines company Clarecraft produced a series of "Animal Avengers" figurines portraying a gang of British woodland creatures defending their home. They were Brigadier Brock (Retd) (a badger), Felicity Fox, Rocky Hare, Hazel Nutt (a squirrel), Maxi-Mouse, and Bruce le Frog.

Video Games

• In Bug Fables, the Ant Kingdom and their Explorers' Association accepts bugs of any kind, and as such, the explorer teams tend to be very diverse in species. Team Snakemouth, the main character team of the game, consists of a bee, a beetle, and a moth. Team Mothiva is made up of a silkmoth and her wasp henchman. Team Celia is formed by an ant and a ladybug. Team Slacker is made up by a Hercules beetle and a mosquito. And in the end of the game, the same-species Brother–Sister Team of Team Maki gets joined by a new moth member.
• The Five Nights at Freddy's series typically features a cast of animal character animatronics of different kinds/generations, usually including a bear, a chicken, a bunny, and a fox.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • The first team to ever appear in the series is Team Chaotix (consisting of a echidna, a chameleon, a crocodile, a bee, and an armadillo) first appearing in Knuckles Chaotix.
  • Sonic Heroes has four playable teams, each with their own storyline: Team Sonic (hedgehog, fox, and echidna), Team Dark (hedgehog, bat, and a robot), Team Rose (hedgehog, rabbit, and cat), and the return of Team Chaotix (chameleon, crocodile, and bee).
  • Sonic Riders has the same teams as Sonic Heroes (except for Team Chaotix), as well as the Babylon Rogues (consisting of a hawk, a swallow, and an albatross).
  • In Sonic Forces, after Dr. Eggman takes over the entire world and Sonic disappears, his allies form The Resistance to counter it.
  • Sonic Mania Plus' Encore Mode allows you to play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Mighty, and Ray (a hedgehog, fox, echidna, armadillo, and flying squirrel, respectively), and switch between each character when you find special power-ups.
• Star Fox:
  • There's the eponymous team, which consists of Fox McCloud, Falco Lombardi, Peppy Hare, and Slippy Toad.
  • The cancelled-but-now-released Star Fox 2 adds Fay (a spaniel) and Miyu (a lynx). This is also the actual debut of Star Wolf (consisting of Wolf O'Donnell, Leon Powalski, Pigma Dengar, and Algy (before being officially changing to Andrew Oikonny in the series's first reboot))
  • In the first reboot of the series, Star Fox 64, the original members of Star Fox were James McCloud, Peppy Hare, and Pigma Dengar, before he eventually betrays them and joined Star Wolf later on, which led to the current formation of Star Fox. This was also used in Star Fox Zero.
  • In the ending of Star Fox Adventures, Krystal, a vixen who is also Fox's love interest, joined the team.
  • In Star Fox: Assault, after Pigma was banned from Star Wolf with Oikonny quitting the team to follow on Andross's footsteps, Panther Carosso joined the team.
  • In Star Fox Command, Krystal joined Star Wolf after Fox forced her to quit. In one of the endings, Slippy's fiance, Amanda (who is a pink-skinned frog), joined Star Fox with Krystal returning to the team. In the ending's aftermath, the son of Fox and Krystal, Marcus McCloud, formed a new team of Star Fox. In another one of the endings, Krystal decides to remain in Star Wolf. In another another one of the endings, Falco decides to form his own team, Star Falco, with Katt Monroe (a cat) and Dash Bowman (a monkey) as its starting members.
• The Nintendo Switch edition of Starlink: Battle for Atlas features the main characters from Star Fox as its main characters, who are chasing Wolf O'Donnell, although only Fox was initially playable. An update added the remaining members as playable characters, with the rest of Star Wolf appearing as enemies.
• Pokémon:
  • The main games are about the human player collecting the different kinds of Pokémon and adding them to his/her roster.
  • The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games are about a group of Pokémon, who live in an actual Pokémon world with no humans, living in different towns and cities and going on adventures in different dungeons.
• Przygody Reksia: Most of the teams and other ensembles are composed of a single species, but there are two major exceptions:
  • The Council of the Seven Wizards is made up of seven different species of animals: a dog, a turkey, a snake, a walrus, a mouse, a pig, and a ram. A Lizard Named "Liz" is in full effect.
  • The Fellowship of the Ring (based on that Fellowship of a Ring, but not the same) is made of a hamster, a beaver, a skunk, and a hedhehog. They briefly team up with Reksio the dog and Kretes the mole.

Web Animation

• hololive's GAMERS generation (basically Generation 2.5) consists of Fubuki Shirakami (a fox girl), Mio Ookami (a wolf girl), Okayu Nekomata (a cat girl), and Korone Inugami (a dog girl).

Webcomics

• Housepets!: Many, many of these show up in one form or another owing to the comic's nature. Of note is the demon-hunting team loosely assembled by Kitsune in Heckraiser, comprised of a dog, a red panda, a bobcat, an aardvark, and a squirrel. Granted, all but the first is a transformed human.
• The four main characters of the furry Space Opera Lancer: The Knights of Fenris are a wolf, a dog, a lynx and a bull. However, the wolf turns out to be a Decoy Protagonist, leaving the other three to carry the story.

Western Animation

• In multiple works involving the Mickey Mouse franchise, the Sensational Six (consisting of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy, and Pluto) occasionally appear.
• In PAW Patrol, the titular protagonists are a rescue team composed by dogs in different breeds accompanied with a human. The first cat joins the team in Season 7.
• The Octonauts are a team of undersea explorers consisting of a polar bear, a cat, a dog, a penguin, a sea otter, a rabbit, an octopus, and a group of plant-animal hybrids.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
  • The main protagonists, the Mane Six, are a group of six ponies (two unicorns and one of them became an alicorn, two pegasi, and two earth ponies) who are the wielders of the Elements of Harmony, each with their own element, which corresponds to their personality (and in the case of Twilight, Magic) as well as Spike, a dragon.
  • The series also has the Cutie Mark Crusaders, a group of fillies (consisting of an earth pony, a pegasus, and an unicorn) whose goal in life is to earn their cutie marks. They eventually achieve that goal by helping others to discover their destinies.
  • The series also has the Student Six, which has an earth pony (Sandbar), a griffon (Gallus), a dragoness (Smoulder), a changeling (Ocellus), a seapony/hippogriff (Silverstream), and a yak (Yona).
• In Loonatics Unleashed, the titular protagonists are a team of superheroes (Ace Bunny, Lexi Bunny, Danger Duck, Slam Tasmanian, Tech E. Coyote, and Rev Runner) who are the descendants of the popular Looney Tunes characters (who are Bugs Bunny, Lola Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner).
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) has the Mighty Mutanimals, characters who were mutated by mutagen just like the turtles. The members are Spike (turtle), Leatherhead (crocodile), Dr. Rockwell (monkey), and Pigeon Pete (pigeon).
  • Downplayed with the main characters of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: while they are all turtles, they're all different types of turtles (Leonardo is a red-eared slider, Donatello is a soft-shelled turtle, Michelangelo is a box turtle, and Raphael is a snapping turtle).
• The Transformers: They're all one race of alien robots that turn into animals rather than actual beasts, so this trope is downplayed.
  • The Transformers: On the Autobots' side there's the Dinobots, made up of Grimlock (Tyrannosaurus Rex), Slag (Triceratops), Sludge (Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus), Snarl (Stegosaurus), and Swoop (Pterodactyl). Meanwhile the Decepticons have the Insecticons, comprised of Shrapnel (stag beetle), Bombshell (rhinoceros beetle), and Kickback (grasshopper), as well as the Predacons, consisting of Razorclaw (lion), Rampage (tiger), Divebomb (eagle), Headstrong (rhino), and Tantrum (bull).
  • Beast Wars: The cast represents a broad cross section of the animal kingdom via their alternate modes: the Maximals comprise a gorilla, a rat, a cheetah, a rhino, a tiger, a Velociraptor, a falcon, and a wolf/eagle hybrid, while the Predacons comprise a Tyrannosaurus, a scorpion, a pterosaur, two spiders (a tarantula and a black widow), a wasp, a crab, a fire ant, and scorpion/cobra hybrid.
• Disney Television's Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers are a Five-Man Band of heroes composed of two chipmunks, namely Chip The Leader and Dale The Lancer; two mice, namely Monterey Jack The Big Guy and Gadget Hackwrench The Smart Girl, and one housefly, Zipper, who's also their primary intelligence gatherer. Their arch-nemesis is Fat Cat, whose cronies are Mole (a mole), Wart (a lizard), and Meps (a sickly cat).
• The Lion Guard is composed of a lion, a honey badger, a hippo, a cheetah, and an egret. This initially causes some friction between Kion (The Leader) and his father, Simba, who believes that the Lion Guard should be made up of lions.
• Yogi Bear led such a team in four series:
  • Yogi's Gang
  • Yogi's Space Race, segment Galaxy Goof-Ups
  • Yogi's Treasure Hunt
  • Yo Yogi!
• The Backyardigans consist of a penguin, a moose, a uniqua, a hippo, and a kangaroo.
• The Bremen Avenue Experience re-imagines the aforementioned Bremen Town Musicians as a modern day Garage Band of Funny Animals, while keeping their original species.
• The Wuzzles is a variant where all characters are Mix-and-Match Critters of two different species, but it's a different combination for each of them. The core team consists of a bee-lion, a butterfly-bear, a rabbit-hippopotamus, an elephant-kangaroo, a rhinoceros-monkey and a moose-seal.
• Let's Go Luna!: Not including Luna the moon, the group of main characters consists of a wombat (Leo), a butterfly (Carmen), and a frog (Andy).
• In Animal Mechanicals, the titular team consists on a T-Rex, a unicorn, a Komodo dragon, a mouse and a sasquatch who are given missions by an owl. As they're all robots, the trope, like in the aforementioned case of Transformers, is downplayed.
• WordWorld: The main Word-Friends consist on a dog, a duck, a pig, a sheep, a bear, an ant and a frog. However, they're not normal animals, but rather animals whose bodies are formed by the letters of their names. Thus, the trope is downplayed is this case.

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