History Main / AccidentallyCorrectZoology

* The invalid dinosaur genus ''Agathaumas'' was named in 1872 for some rather unremarkable fossils that probably belonged to a ''Triceratops''. Even though nobody knew what the whole skeleton looked like, artist Creator/CharlesRKnight illustrated it as a sort of imaginary cross between a ''Triceratops'' and a ''Styracosaurus'', with three horns and a spiky frill (a combination which has since gone on to appear frequently in fiction). At the time, no dinosaur with this combination of features was actually known. In 2015, a dinosaur named ''Regaliceratops'' was discovered that looked almost exactly like the one in Knight's painting -- and it came from the same time as the ''Agathaumas'' fossils too!

* The hoop snake is one of the many FearsomeCrittersOfAmericanFolklore (and Australia), described as being able to grab its tail in its mouth and cartwheel down hills. It was meant to be a ridiculous, made-up TallTale beastie, but in 2023, [[https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Observations-and-description-of-a-rare-escape-in-a-Quah-Grismer/33bae07e7b02fc6f53c688b3bd908b35d1fa2b4e a species of snake was actually filmed]] doing this exact thing as a defence mechanism.

* ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'': Although the blue whale [[spoiler:that swallows Marlin and Dory]] in the film being portrayed as having a uvula (the grape-like ball that hangs in the back of your throat) was initially seen as inaccurate, [[https://news.ubc.ca/2022/01/20/heres-why-whales-dont-drown-when-they-gulp-down-food-underwater/ the discovery of a similar "oral plug" in many baleen whales that closes their airways off when lunging for food, much like a human uvula, was discovered in 2022]], rendering the addition of the organ somewhat accurate after all.

** In 2015, [[https://www.livescience.com/50548-kermit-the-frog-look-alike-discovered.html a frog species resembling Kermit the Frog was discovered in Costa Rica]].

* Maned domestic cats, that is, maned like a male lion, are a good example of this.
** Back in the 1990s, the "Longhair Sphynx" or "Powderpuff Sphynx" was a fancy April Fool's joke, poking fun at breed classification by registries. Several years after the joke, a longhaired mutant Sphynx really did appear. Said cat was a neutered domestic pet. It had long, fine fur on the chest and sides and short fur on the legs, but was bald elsewhere. This gave it the appearance of a maned cat.

* Many cartoon cats of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Felix the Cat, Mike, Ortensia and Homer, and Beans, have black fur all over except for a white muzzle or face. Many of them also have white back paws or back and front paws with the white fur stopping at the ankle/wrist. There is a type of cat with a white spotting pattern that was discovered in Russia the 2010s, [[http://messybeast.com/blue-eye-breeds.htm called the Topaz white spotting pattern,]] that produces a pattern with white only on the face/muzzle, throat, feet, and tip of tail without a white chest or belly in the low-grade form, which resembles the InkblotCartoonStyle cats.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Warner, although from the 1990s, are InkblotCartoonStyle CartoonCreature characters who have that general appearance of the low-grade Topaz cat white spotting pattern, black furred with a white face and white feet.

* In the ''Literature/{{Tarzan}}'' book series, starting in 1912, the protagonist is [[RaisedByWolves raised by]] a fictional ape species named "Mangani", which combines the physical and behavioral traits of chimpanzees, gorillas and primitive humans. In 1996, in the Bili Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a subspecies of chimpanzee was discovered that is larger than other chimpanzees and shows some gorilla-like behavior. The similarity between the Mangani and the "Bili ape" did not go unnoticed.

* In ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge'' Hammy and RJ are stealing cookies from girl scouts, Hammy threatens a reflection of himself on a car bumper. In real life Squirrels are territorial animals and would growl and attack another squirrel and most don't even recognize their own reflections so his reaction to his own reflection is pretty accurate.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Taz's trademark noises consisting of growls, screeches, snorts and yells were improvisions by Mel Blanc due to no one in the staff knowing what Tasmanian devils sound like. However, real-life Tasmanian devils do make noises that sound similar to Taz's.

* In ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge'' Hammy and RJ are stealing cookies from girl scouts, Hammy threatens a reflection of himself on a car bumper. In real life Squirrels are territorial animals and would growl and attack another squirrel and most don't even recognize their own reflections so his reaction to his own reflection is pretty accurate

* In ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge'' Hammy and RJ are stealing cookies from girl scouts, Hammy threatens a reflection of himself on a car bumper. In real life Squirrels are territorial animals and would growl and attack another squirrel and most don't even recognize their own reflections so his reaction to his own reflection is pretty accurate.
* [[BigBad Maleficent's]] [[OneWingedAngel dragon form]] from ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'' apparently resembles a more modern reconstruction of a ''[[SavageSpinosaurs Spinosaurus]]'' (such as having a narrow snout, a long neck and short legs, and having spikes located where the dinosaur's dorsal sail would be) than any of the official reconstructions of ''Spinosaurus'' at the time of the movie's release.

* [[BigBad Maleficent's]] [[OneWingedAngel dragon form]] from ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'' apparently resembles a more modern reconstruction of a [[SavageSpinosaurs ''Spinosaurus'']] than any of the official reconstructions of ''Spinosaurus'' at the time of the movie's release.

** The franchise, starting in 2002, has a "sabre-toothed squirrel" named Scrat. ''Cronopio dentiacutus'' is a small (8-9 inches long) squirrel-like mammal with a long snout and sharp canines, discovered in 2011. However, it lived during the Cretaceous Period, not the ice age, wasn't a rodent, and probably didn't eat acorns.

** The ''Gastornis'' from the sequels don't appear to invoke the same CarnivoreConfusion among herbivores as other carnivores in the series do. Skip ahead several years and it's discovered that ''Gastornis'' was actually a herbivore.

* ''Film/JurassicPark1993'': The velociraptors are nothing like and much larger than real-life ''Velociraptor'', which was about the size of turkey, and are based on ''Deinonychus'' instead -- but are, in fact, far too large to be ''Deinonychus'' either, as even the largest specimens didn't quite reach a meter of height at the shoulder. However, after filming of the first movie had started, an even larger species than the movie raptors called ''Utahraptor'' was discovered. In the years since then, another dromaeosaur has been found matching ''Jurassic Park'''s raptors for size, ''and'' it lived in roughly the same time and place as the raptor Grant was digging up. It's called ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakotaraptor Dakotaraptor]]''. Both are still not complete matches, since ''Utahraptor'' and ''Dakotaraptor'' had feathers (the arm bones of ''Dakotaraptor'' even have quill knobs to prove it) unlike the raptors in the book and movie. Also, ''Utahraptor'' turned out to be more bizarre-looking than JP's raptors in having a stockier build, shorter legs and tail, and a procumbent jaw.

** ** The German ''Rhamphorhynchus'' is shown coexisting with Oxford Clay Formation in England, likely based off fragmentary fossils from the site previously classified within the genus (and ''Rhamphorhynchus'' being thought to have a much bigger geographical range at the time due to scrappy Jurassic pterosaur fossils from around the world ascribed to it), but have since been determined to be dubious and likely represent unrelated rhamphorhynchoids (on top of the fact the episode is set more than ten million years after all the Oxford Clay fauna died out). However, an actual English ''Rhamphorhynchus'' was discovered in 2002 (named ''Rhamphorhynchus etchesi'' in 2015), and lived at the exact time the episode is set to boot (in the younger Kimmeridge Clay Formation).

** The dromaeosaurid from the last episode, "Death of a Dynasty", was seen as an example of AnachronismStew, as ''Dromaeosaurus'' (what the animal was called during production despite its flaws) was extinct by the K/Pg extinction. Skip ahead to 2013, and the dromaeosaur ''Acheroraptor'', just the right size to match with this creature, is discovered in the exact formation the episode takes place in.

** The website also placed then-indeterminate southern hemisphere ornithopods like ''Gasparinisaura'' and ''Leaellynasaura'' in the made-up group "Australornithopoda". In 2019, these southern ornithopods were found to be a natural group after all, and this group was given the name Elasmeria.

** In the first movie, a group of aggressive ''Pachycephalosaurus'' attack Cera. Though they might be territorial, their slobbering expressions indicate they are trying to eat her, even though at the time the species was believed to be strictly herbivorous (which is reflected in the sequels). However, [[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/news-vegetarian-dinosaur-ate-meat-pachycephalosaurus-paleontology a 2018 finding]] showed that ''Pachycephalosaurus'' had sharp front teeth, indicating an omnivorous diet that may have included baby dinosaurs.

** The website also placed then-indeterminate southern ornithopods like ''Gasparinisaura'' and ''Leaellynasaura'' in the made-up group "Australornithopoda". Come 2019, ''Gasparinisaura'' and ''Leaellynasaura'' have indeed been found to be related to a large, unsorted group of southern ornithopods, the Elasmaria.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}}'' and the [[RecycledTheSeries spin-off series]] ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTarzan'', gorillas are shown catching termites with sticks. Back in 1999, when the movie was made, it was believed that only chimpanzees do this. However, in 2014, [[http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141218-wild-gorilla-has-eureka-moment similar behavior was also observed in mountain gorillas]].