History Main / AccidentallyCorrectZoology

* ''Literature/EarthsChildren'': In the second book (1982), set in Eastern Europe 30,000 years ago, Ayla claims to have seen a sabertooth cat once. This is treated as NotSoExtinct (Jondalar is amazed and says he only knows of a very old man who saw one) but it was still a stretch: sabertooths were believed to have disappeared from the Old World in the Middle Pleistocene, thousands of years before modern humans colonized Europe. However, in 2003 a ''Homotherium'' jaw was fished out of the North Sea, and dated right to the time setting of the book.

** The 5 million years AD segment has "Carakillers", a flightless terror bird-mimic evolved from South American caracara. In 2008, a flightless caracara from Pleistocene Jamaica was described.

* ''Website/SpecWorld'': It's noted that while the Mesozoic fossil record for [[AlternateHistoryDinosaurSurvival Specworld]] is by large the same as our world (since the explicit point of divergence is the K/Pg-extinction event), there are a few fossils found exclusively there, which the text speculates represent taxa that exist in both timelines and simply have not been found in our world yet. One of these is a monotreme from the Late Cretaceous of South America (called ''Mirabilotheridium''). In 2022, a monotreme from the Late Cretaceous of South America was indeed described (known as ''Patagorhynchus'').

* The 1940 film ''One Million BC'' (the original version of the more famous 1966 ''Film/OneMillionYearsBC'') features a "dinosaur" that is [[{{Slurpasaur}} a crocodile with a sail taped on its back]]. Discoveries in 2014 and then in 2020 demonstrated that ''Spinosaurus'' had very crocodile-like proportions (elongated skull, short hind legs, broad paddle-like tail), looking very much like a crocodile with a sail on its back.

* ''Film/JurassicPark'': 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.

** A pterosaur has been discovered that used its wings in a penguin-like manner: ''Alcione elainus''.

** Bakker included a therizinosaur ("segnosaur") even though none were known from the right time and place when the book was written. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was depicted as a mountain dweller, therefore [[FridgeBrilliance living in an environment unlikely to preserve its fossils.]] A decade later, a therizinosaur (''Falcarius'') contemporaneous with ''Utahraptor'' was published.

** The ''Tapejara'' in "Giant of the Skies" were restored as mainly black with a red crest, years before fossil evidence confirmed those same colors.
** The ''Didelphodon'', while completely inaccurate per [[ScienceMarchesOn/WalkingWithDinosaurs later fossil evidence]], turned out to be a remarkably close depiction of other Cretaceous mammals also discovered later, like ''Repenomamus'' and ''Nanocuris'', both of which are known to have eaten [[WhosLaughingNow dinosaur]] [[EatsBabies hatchlings]].

* In 1915, an ornithologist named Steve William Bebee hypothesized a "Tetrapteryx" stage in bird evolution where avian ancestors had feathers on their wings and legs. In 2003, ''Microraptor'' was discovered. They were the first dinosaurs found with feathers on both their wings and legs.

* ''Nemegtomaia'' (meaning "Nemegt mother") was named in 2005 to comemmorate the recently-discovered fact that oviraptorosaurs took care of their young, [[NonIndicativeName instead of stealing and guarding other dinosaurs' eggs]] as previously believed. At that time, only ''Citipati'' had definitive proof of parental care, but in 2007, it was found that ''Nemegtomaia'' itself did indeed take care of its eggs.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Taz's trademark noises consisting of growls, screeches, snorts and yells were improvision 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Taz's trademark speech consisting of growls, snorts, screeches and yells was improvision 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Taz's trademark speech consisting of growls, snorts and yells was improvision 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.

->"It just goes to show how diverse ancient mammals are, that we can just imagine some bizarre critter and later find something just like it."

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Taz's trademark speech consisting of growls, snorts and yells was improvision 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Taz's trademark speech consisting of growls, snorts, and raspberries was improvision 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Taz's trademark speech consisting of snarls, gargles and raspberries was improvision 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge''
** In the film where 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.

** The dinosaurs in "The Rite of Spring" display such behaviors as parental care and the bipeds (including the ''Tyrannosaurus'') running with their tails off of the ground for counterbalance. These would be vindicated by the Dinosaur Renaissance occurring later in the 1970s.

** The dinosaurs in "The Rite of Spring" display such behaviors as parental care and the bipeds (including the ''Tyrannosaurus'') running in with their tails off of the ground for counterbalance. These would be vindicated by the Dinosaur Renaissance occurring later in the 1970s.

* The ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' in ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'' was going to have two fingers as in reality, but Creator/WaltDisney himself thought three fingers looked better and changed it. The movie has the ''Tyrannosaurus'' fight a ''Stegosaurus'', which actually lived roughly [[AnachronismStew 80 million years]] before ''Tyrannosaurus''... and along the three-fingered carnosaur ''Allosaurus''.

** The second game features the gorgonopsian therapsid ''Inostrancevia'', which is inaccurately portrayed with scaly armor despite being a mammal relative. However, its depiction as an armored reptile with large powerful jaws and large teeth makes it similar to the terrestrial crocodyliform ''Kaprosuchus'' discovered years later.

* Some of the most [[DemonicSpiders difficult enemies]] in ''VideoGame/DinoCrisis'' are the ''Therizinosaurus'', depicted as carnivorous dinosaurs with giant slashing claws on their hands. It was not until after the game was released that real therizinosaurs were established as herbivores. However, their portrayal bears a resemblance to a real dinosaur called ''Megaraptor'', which at the time was itself mistakenly believed to be a giant dromaeosaur.

* For a long time, pterosaurs with both teeth ''and'' head crests only were known [[PteroSoarer in popular culture,]] mostly in the form of toys (smaller species with toothy jaws lacked crests, whereas larger species with spectacular crests lacked teeth). In 2003, a pterosaur having both features was discovered, and was given the name ''Ludodactylus'', from the Latin word "ludus", meaning "toy".

* In 1903, ''Brontosaurus'' was judged to have simply been an ''Apatosaurus'' skeleton and all specimens of it were reassigned to the older genus. Popular fiction however continued to depict ''Brontosaurus'' as its own thing over the following century. In 2015, analysis of ''Apatosaurus parvus'' (formerly ''Brontosaurus parvus'') remains decided that they were distinct enough from other ''Apatosaurus'' skeletons to classify as a distinct genus and resurrected the ''Brontosaurus'' name for them, making those older works Accidentally Correct in hindsight.

* Pretty much any pre-2015 work that features ''Brontosaurus'' has become this, now that the genus turned out to be separate from ''Apatosaurus'' rather than synonymous.
** The same goes for any genera that were a fairly common sight in older works that had been considered to be a junior synonym but later turned out to be separate after all. Particularly ''Dinichthys'' (formerly synonymous with ''Dunkleosteus''), ''Eohippus'' (formerly synonymous with ''Hyracotherium''), ''Scolosaurus'' (formerly synonymous with ''Euoplocephalus''), and ''Stenonychosaurus'' (formerly synonymous with ''Troodon''[[note]]ironically now a dubious genus[[/note]]).

** The ''Didelphodon'', while completely inaccurate per [[ScienceMarchesOn/WalkingWithDinosaurs later fossil evidence]], turned out to be a remarkably close depiction of a different Mesozoic mammal: ''Repenomamus'', from the early Cretaceous of China.

* ''Literature/EarthsChildren'': In the second book (1982), set in Eastern Europe 30,000 years ago, Ayla claims to have seen a sabertooth cat once. This is treated as a case of NotSoExtinct[[note]]Jondalar is amazed and claims that he only knows of a very old man who saw one[[/note]] but it was still a stretch: sabertooths were believed to have disappeared from the Old World in the Middle Pleistocene, thousands of years before modern humans colonized Europe. However, in 2003 a ''Homotherium'' jaw was fished out of the North Sea, and dated right to the time setting of the book.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the last segment of "Treehouse of Horror XI", dolphins are depicted as former land animals that were banished into the sea by humans long, long ago. While this is played for usual surrealism of the ''Treehouse of Horror'' episodes, it is known that the ancestors of dolphins and other cetaceans were hoofed mammals that returned to living in the ocean (though obviously without the influence of humans, as they haven't yet appeared during the time of the first proto-cetacean).

* Many {{Slurpasaur}}s also involved large lizards with horns taped to their brows to give them a ceratopsian-like appearance, with a notable example being 1960's ''The Lost World''. In 2017, ''Shringasaurus'', a giant, quadrapedal archosaur relative was discovered, with a roughly lizard-like body plan aside from the presence of two brow horns.

* Many {{Slurpasaurs}} also involved large lizards with horns taped to their brows to give them a ceratopsian-like appearance, with a notable example being 1960's ''The Lost World''. In 2017, ''Shringasaurus'', a giant, quadrapedal archosaur relative was discovered, with a roughly lizard-like body plan aside from the presence of two brow horns.

* Many {{Slurpasaurus}}es involved large lizards with horns taped to them, with a notable example being 1960's ''The Lost World''. In 2017, ''Shringasaurus'', a giant, quadrapedal archosaur relative was discovered, with a roughly lizard-like body plan aside from the presence of two brow horns.