History Main / CallAPegasusAHippogriff

* ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology'': The tabletop version depicts ThePhoenix as a fire-breathing legless dragon-like creature with membraneous wings, scaly skin and no discernable avian features aside from it's beak. This is an especially odd case, considering the original video game had a much more traditional (albeit somewhat {{pteros|oarer}}aur-like) phoenix.

* ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'' refers to the titular monsters as "{{oni}}" in Japanese, and the English versions uses "demons", but they're closer to vampires: insatiable bloodlust, HealingFactor, fangs, reproduce by infecting humans with their blood, and can only be killed by decapitation or exposure to sunlight.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' has the problem with giving Wyverns four legs, though it often switches between the two. One time, even in the same game, as in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones Sacred Stones]]'', promoting a Wyvern Rider into a Wyvern Knight seems to result in the Wyvern losing its front limbs and thus resembling a true Wyvern. The remakes of the first and third games changes it so domesticated Wyverns have four legs and wild wyverns have two.

* ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'': The Kraken, while being a giant sea creature that attacks ships, only resembles a kraken as far as that. It looks less like a giant multi-tentacled cephalopod and more like a giant green eel with a head that looks like a green Pacman with a bloody mouth and fangs and fire coming out of it, and a dimpled smile.

* Westerners have long used Western mythical names for a number of Chinese mythical creatures, even if they bear only the slightest resemblance to their supposed counterparts. Examples include calling the Fenghuang, or August Rooster, a "phoenix", even though it has no association with fire or rebirth, or the Qilin (a mythical creature with the head of a dragon and a body of tiger with scales) a "unicorn". Thanks to a Chinese Emperor, the word "Qilin," or its Japanese equivalent "Kirin", is used today as the name of the very real giraffe.
** Some have even suggested that the same sloppiness applies to Chinese dragons as well. The Chinese word for the creature we call a Chinese dragon is ''Long'' or ''Lung'', and they don't exhibit many of the characteristics associated with the "original" dragons of Europe, such as breathing fire or having wings.

* The animated adaptation of Literature/LittleBear occasionally featured mischievous creatures called [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent Goblins]]. But rather than being the traditional green skinned monsters, they were portrayed as little bearded men with pointed hats, essentially being [[OurGnomesAreWeirder Gnomes]] in all but name, possibly to make their appearance more family friendly.

** Some of the main characters are shapeshifting superintelligent dragons who are, in some details, [[OurDragonsAreDifferent quite different]].

* The White Court vampires form ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' are [[HornyDevils succubi/incubi]] and have nothing in common with vampires apart from feeding (sexual energy not blood) off humans.

* Dream of ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' has three guardian beasts, one of which is a winged horse. This character is also identified as a hippogriff. Given that [[ViewersAreGeniuses this is Neil Gaiman writing]], it's likely an Creator/ENesbit tribute (see Literature below). Also, the dragon (four legs) is called a wyvern (two legs) - possibly Neil knew what he was talking about but none of the artists did.

* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', the English dub refers to the titular monsters as "demons" (or "{{oni}}" in Japanese) but they're apparently closer to vampires; insatiable bloodlust, HealingFactor, fangs, reproduce by infecting humans with their blood, and can only be killed by decapitation or exposure to sunlight.

** The term "alicorn" to describe the WingedUnicorn, which later became AscendedFanon. The term Alicorn usually refers to the theoretical substance of a {{Unicorn}}'s horn, barring the fact there were already fan terms in play from previous generations such a "unipeg" and "pegicorn". Wiki/TheOtherWiki traces the usage of "alicorn" to mean "winged unicorn" back to a book by Creator/PiersAnthony, originally written in 1984.

* The witches from ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' aren't humanoid magic users, but {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that feed on human emotion and live in [[EldritchLocation Labrynths]]. This name makes a bit more sense when you learn that [[spoiler:they're [[TheCorruption corrupted]] MagicalGirls]]. Their familiars also aren't animals, but rather similar monsters that are subservient to them.

** Rowling tends to do this a lot. Her "[[SelkiesAndWereseals selkies]]", for example, are apparently just the Scottish subspecies of merfolk, with no connection to seals. Likewise, her basilisks have little connection to the [[BasiliskAndCockatrice half-serpent, half-rooster creature of legend]] other than being able to kill people with their eyes-- they simply look like giant snakes.

** Enojo the {{Kitsune}} is called a "humanoid fox."

** ''D&D'' has had {{Baku}} since 1st Edition, but other than having an elephant's head and trunk, these creatures had nothing to do with the DreamEater of legend -- instead they were denoted by having PsychicPowers and dwelling in the Upper Planes. So when 3rd Edition released a supplement on monsters from Asian mythologies, the result was a separate entry for a dream-walking, trunked spirit, which was dubbed a "shirokinukatsukami," which might be an attempt at saying "white silk spirit" or "bedsheet spirit."

* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', the English dub refers to the titular monsters as "demons" (or "{{oni}}" in Japanese) but they're apparently closer to vampires; insatiable bloodlust, HealingFactor, fangs, and can only be killed by decapitation or exposure to sunlight.

* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', the English dub refers to the titular monsters as "demons" (or "{{oni}}" in Japanese) but apparently are closer to vampires; insatiable bloodlust, HealingFactor, fangs, and can only be killed by decapitation or exposure to sunlight.

* Gryphon from ''Anime/{{Bakugan}}'' is actually portrayed as a winged, three-headed monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail instead of a monster with a bird's head and wings and a lion's body. This more closely resembled a chimera.

* In ''Manga/BlackClover,'' the fire spirit is described as a "salamander." While it starts off small, it has wings and pretty quickly grows into what would be better described as a "dragon."

* ''Franchise/{{Zoids}}'' doesn't even seem to care, considering robot triceratops with sharp pointy teeth are RuleOfCool, but to writ: the Liger series of Zoids are referred to as "lion type" and several four-legged-and-winged dragons are "wyvern type". For that matter, whether Franchise/{{Godzilla}}-esque or more like a giant monitor lizard, any big reptile zoid made before 2000 will be called [[ArtisticLicensePaleontology "tyrannosaurus type".]]

*** The Blue Ranger's mecha was shifted from a Pegasus (by its Chinese name "Tenma" in ''Dairanger'') to a Unicorn. This could have been done to smooth over the change from the prior season's blue mecha, a Triceratops, by making a 'horned beasts' connection. The fact that the mecha has no wings but does have a small horn might have also played a part, though the Bandai America toy has a small horn that extends out from what can now only really be described as the bump on its head.

* ''Manga/ShadowStar'' has this on multiple levels. All of the monsters in the story are collectively referred to as "dragons", even though most of them are closer to {{Eldritch Abomination}}s than anything else. There's only one that ''does'' look like a dragon, at least in the sense of being a giant reptilian creature with wings. . . but it's called "Tarasque", after a monster from French folklore that it looks nothing like.

** The book in question is ''Bearing an Hourglass'', the second book in the ''Literature/IncarnationsOfImmortality'' series. Anthony maintains that he saw "alicorn" in a fantasy magazine in reference to a figurine of a winged unicorn, and had never seen the word before. ''Bearing an Hourglass'' was translated into many other languages which simply kept "alicorn" as is, and it was brought back into English with this new definition sometime between then and ''Friendship is Magic'', at which point probably no one still alive had ever heard of the word in its original definition either. That said, the fact that modern unicorns almost always have spiraled horns is most likely a cheeky reference to the fact that spiraled narwhal tusks were the most common item for swindlers to pass off as unicorn horns / alicorn.

** It's possible the G4 Pukwudgies may have been modeled after G1's Bushwoolies but redesigned or renamed due to the trademarks expiring.

* The giant that The Queen Of Fables sends after the gang in the ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn'' episode, ''[[Recap/HarleyQuinn2019S1E12DevilsSnare Devil's Snare]]'' has one eye but is only ever called a giant rather than a cyclops.

* One of the songs from Rimsky-Korsakov's opera ''{{Theatre/Sadko}}'' had a visitor from India describe the wonders of his land, including ThePhoenix. Except the description he gives is that of a creature named Sirin; that is, the EnthrallingSiren.

* In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow'', the Cockatrice and the Basilisk are pretty much palette swaps, although they are completely separate critters. Most of the time.
** The Gorgon/catoblepas issue (see Tabletop Games, above) is also present in ''Aria''. Likewise, one of the most iconic GodDamnBats of the entire series is the Medusa Head, which is very different from the other gorgons in the game.