This trope also applies to monotremes (that special order of mammals that lay eggs), mythological creatures that are not usually depicted as giving live birth, and even Animate Inanimate Objects if they are shown getting pregnant or giving birth.
The animal does not necessarily have to be shown giving birth, as a pregnant belly is enough to show that it is a live birth.note Similarly, despite the title, if the non-mammal is shown birthing live young, they don’t have to be shown getting pregnant.
It should be noted that, despite what is often taught in schools about reptiles as egg-layers, quite a few species of snakes and lizards (as well as some fish such as sharks) are in fact capable of carrying and bearing true live young; this is not a feature limited to mammals. In fact, an entire group of snakes— vipers— actually got their name because of this trait, as "viper" is short for "ovoviviparous," which basically means that the mother's eggs hatch inside her body and the young are born live. Also, any egg-laying species that undergoes internal fertilization will carry the offspring within its body for a period, until it comes time to lay eggs.
Sub-Trope of Artistic License – Biology and Pregnancy Does Not Work That Way. Contrast with Whale Egg, in which a mammal reproduces in an unnatural way. Can go hand-in-hand with Non-Mammal Mammaries. Interspecies Romance examples count too if the character giving birth to the non-mammal is oviparous but the partner not giving birth is viviparous (never vice-versa though). See also Mister Seahorse for another trope about characters getting pregnant/giving birth when they biologically shouldn't be able to.
Examples:
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Advertising
- This ad
for Baby Tuc crackers has a regular-sized Tuc give birth to a Baby Tuc, complete with a baby bump that disappears upon the birth and what sounds like laboured breathing.
- Later mixed with Interspecies Romance for Tuc Craks - the lovechild of a crisp and a cracker.
- Later mixed with Interspecies Romance for Tuc Craks - the lovechild of a crisp and a cracker.
Comic Books
- Lara-Le from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) is an echidna, in Real Life an egg-laying mammal, who was pregnant both with Knuckles, and his half-brother. One issue states that an echidna egg typically hatches three days after it has been laid.
- The Unfunnies depicts Sally Gator with a baby bump when she and her husband conceive a new child.
- Issue #115 of Invincible shows a prominent shot of Emperor Thragg's personal maternity ward on Thraxa, where hundreds of blue mantis-like Thraxan women are shown either cradling pregnant bellies or giving birth to his half-Viltrumite spawn. Who are born looking almost exactly like human babies, save for the bluish-purple tint to their skin.
Fanfiction
- In The Newest Addition: Irrilia, it is implied that Irrilia's birth was a live one, Mona Lisa having delivered her at a hospital in her home planet. What makes this trope apply is that Mona Lisa is a Salamandrian (a humanoid salamander alien) while the father Raphael is a mutant-turtle.
Film
- Hutts from Star Wars are implied to be reptiles or amphibians, and are male, yet they are able to get pregnant and give birth. Star Wars Legends establishes that Hutts are hermaphrodites that prefer male pronouns.
- Alien: Resurrection: It's unclear exactly what taxonomy the Xenomorphs would belong to, but they're clearly not mammals since they do not have mammary glands.note However, because of retaining some of Ripley's DNA after gestating inside her, the new Queen ends up birthing a live newborn.
Literature
- Froggy's Baby Sister shows Froggy's mother pregnant with his baby sister. His baby sister is then shown drinking fly mush.
- In Franklin, the main character, a turtle, is eventually given a little sister. But the book has the mother going through a normal pregnancy instead of her laying an egg. The same is true in the adaptation film, Franklin and the Green Knight.
- At one point in The Malloreon, Sadi's pet snake gives birth. This puzzles some of the others until Sadi explains that while most snakes lay eggs, his pet's species is a live-birth one.
- Anadi Jokka from Tales of the Jokka give live birth. Although it's not entirely clear whether they are mammals even though they lactate, have breasts, and have hair, considering that they're aliens and have been known to change sexes during puberty.
Live-Action TV
- In the Star Trek universe, Cardassians resemble reptiles more than mammals. They like lying on hot rocks in heat too intense for most other races, and they have patches of scales on their skin and have flared necks akin to snakes. While we've never seen a pregnant Cardassian, they are known to have reproduced with Bajorans, and one woman thought breeding with a human was possible.
Puppet Shows
- Slimey's mother, a worm, was shown pregnant in Episode 3307 of Sesame Street, even though real-life worms hatch from eggs.
Toys
- There are some rubber duck bath toys that are depicted as being pregnant, and you can find them here.
Video Games
- Minecraft:
- While chickens do lay eggs that occasionally spawn chicks when thrown, they can also breed in the standard way like mammals in the game do, which resembles kissing followed by an instant live birth.
- In a similar vein, bees go through the same breeding process as any other breedable mob in the game.
- Players can invoke this in The Sapling, as whether or not an animal gives birth to live young or lays eggs is completely independent of what type of animal they are.
- In Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue, one mission has Ty dealing with an accidental roadblock to help a woman in labor get to the hospital. The woman in question is a koala, and while koalas are mammals, they're marsupials and thus have short pregnancies, with young born very early in development and largely nourished inside their pouches. This pregnancy, however, is shown as human-like, with the koala woman having a large abdomen and labored breathing.
Webcomics
- The Wyverns (a type of bipedal dragon) from Dark Wings are shown to give live birth - in fact, Sleet was cut out from his dead mother's body, even though most other dragons typically lay eggs in other media.
- In Ennui GO!, Ally is shown to be pregnant in the final right panel of "Those Guys." As a reminder, Ally is half-alligator.
Web Original
- Hamster's Paradise: The rattiles are scaly cold-blooded lizard analogues but they still give birth to live young due to their mammalian heritage. However, they have lost their mammary glands and give birth to highly precocial young because the mothers either won't care for their offspring at all or will only put in a token effort to feed and protect them before leaving so she doesn't eat them when her maternal hormones run out.
- Serina: A number of bird groups develop full viviparity over time:
- The vivas are flightless birds that carry their huge eggs until or even just after they hatch. The original species essentially broods fully formed eggs within their bodies, but later ones create increasingly neotenic and shell-less eggs.
- Placental birds descend from the changeling birds, which metamorphose from "larvae" similar to insects and hatch from tiny eggs lacking much yolk. Some lineages evolve the ability to retain these larvae inside their oviduct and nourish them with their bloodstream until the young are born live and well-developed.
Western Animation
- Discussed in Dinosaur Train's "Zepplin" arc. When the young Polycotylus says she's one day old, the kids point out that she's half the size of her mother, and Don wonders if her egg was huge. The Polycotylus says no, her species gives live birth.
- Futurama: Done with Kif, who is an alien that is basically humanoid, but has Bizarre Alien Biology that points to him being some sort of amphibian. When he gets pregnant, however, he winds up giving birth to a collection of tadpoles. It's an interspecies example, too, as the biological mother is Leela.
- The Loud House: In "Friends in Dry Places", a snake is said to have given birth in Lincoln's sleeping bag. Justified, since some kinds of real-life snakes really appear to give live birth.
- Robot Chicken: "Potato Whore" has Mrs. Potato Head giving birth to a carrot, to which Mr. Potato Head replies, "You Whore".
- One South Park episode had an ostrich giving birth to a half-human half-ostrich child after a PETA member has sex with her.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In the episode "Truth or Square", it is revealed that SpongeBob's first time tasting the Krusty Krab was when his mother was pregnant with him. He is shown in her womb, being fed Krabby Patties through an umbilical cord (which he pulls off his abdomen and sucks!). While sponges don't actually give live birth, they are biological hermaphrodites and are capable of sexual reproduction in addition to the better-known method of asexual budding that the show itself popularized much earlier in its run.
- In the episode "Pets or Pests", SpongeBob adopts a worm that he thinks is a male, which then gets pregnant and gives live birth. SpongeBob then spends the rest of the episode trying to find someone to adopt the baby worms.
- Although he wasn't actually pregnant, Mr. Krabs disguised as a pregnant woman in the episode "The Cent of Money".
- Then there is the episode "Spot Returns" where Plankton's amoeba puppy gets pregnant and gives birth. This also turns out to be a case of Your Tomcat Is Pregnant like the worm example above.
- Inverted in Rocko's Modern Life; Filburt is a turtle who is married to a cat, Dr. Paula Hutchinson. When the two of them have a baby, Dr. Hutchinson ends up laying an egg, which hatches into two baby turtles, a kitten... and a steer that looks like Heffer for some reason.
Real Life
- The formal scientific term for live birth is "viviparity". This is the primary form of reproduction among mammals, but there are also some snake, lizard, shark, and worm species which bear true live young instead of laying eggs (which is known as "oviparity"). As with mammals, these young are nourished through direct connections to the mother's body during pregnancy, often with some kind of placenta. Likewise, some frogs, fish, and other snakes are known as ovoviviparous: while eggs are laid and develop inside the mother's body, they are not connected to or nourished by the mother's body as in euviviparous (true live-birthing animal) species, and instead are nourished by a supply of yolk. The young then hatch and come out, giving the appearance of live birth.
- Prehistoric marine reptiles, such as plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, and pliosaurs, also reproduced this way. In their case, this was justified due to their lifestyle restricting them to the ocean, making it impossible for them to go onto dry land to lay their eggs.
- The same can be said for a number of amphibians, including a few frogs and toads, the fire salamander, and several species of caecilians, which also give live birth instead of laying eggs.
- The Poeciliidae family of fish (which includes guppies, mollies, platies, swordtails, endlers, and mosquito fish) are known as livebearers for this very reason.
- Speaking of fish, seahorses and other members of the family Syngnathidae are this trope in addition to being Mister Seahorse.
- This is, in fact, how vipers (who are ovoviviparous rather than euviviparous) got their name.
- Among lizards, the two best-known species that bear live young are horned lizards and blue-tongued skinks. This is actually the reason blue-tongues are relatively expensive to purchase as pets; they don't bear nearly as many young as their egg-laying relatives. There's also a species of lizard that is named for this trait, the viviparous lizard.
- Aphids are tiny insects that not only incubate their eggs but are basically born pregnant. Each egg ovulated immediately begins development into an aphid embryo as it travels down the oviduct, and once said embryo's oviducts are developed enough, it starts ovulating itself, even before it's been born! Naturally, this coupled with the fact that aphids usually breed asexually makes them one of nature's most prolific Explosive Breeders.
- Some flies give live birth. Many flesh flies have their eggs hatch into larvae within the mother. Tsetse flies and their relatives take this further by gestating their larvae until they're almost ready to pupate. They even raise their larvae on a bug analogue of milk while they're developing.
