History Main / CallASmeerpARabbit

** Meanwhile the series's iconic [[PersonalSpaceInvader headcrabs]] look nothing like actual crabs; they're more like giant mites but with [[FourLeggedInsect four spider legs.]] [[AlienLunch They don't taste like crab, either]].

In ''Literature/TheJungleBook'', one of the characters in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is "Chuchundra the musk-rat". Muskrats are native to America, not India, and "chuchundar" in Hindi means either the Asian house-shrew or the mole. Chuchundra is more likely the former, but either way is a small, land-dwelling insectivore, nor a medium-sized, semi-aquatic rodent.

* ''The Wiki/SCPFoundation'''s SCP-682 is known as the [[NighInvulnerable Hard-to-Destroy]] Reptile. While it may ''look'' reptilian, it's actually [[EldritchAbomination something so alien]] that [[HumansThroughAlienEyes it sees Earth lifeforms as horrific monstrosities]] [[AbsoluteXenophobe that must be killed]]. (Also, the original photograph used to represent it is the half-rotten corpse of a beached whale.)

* The popular ''Series/{{Ultraman}}'' {{kaiju}} Zetton goes by the BossSubtitles of "Space [[EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs Dinosaur]]". Said "dinosaur" is an insect-like humanoid creature with TheBlank for a face. Supposedly, this is because Zetton's role as Ultraman's final enemy was originally intended for a reptilian monster named Saigo (who is certainly more dinosaur-like than Zetton), and although Saigo was DemotedToExtra during production, the subtitle stuck.

* ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin: Defender of the Future'' has a mild example in a couple of the alternate future "dolphin" species that take more cues from beaked whales than dolphins. The Clan seem to be nonspecific beaked whales, with tusks and generally beaked whale-y body plans, while the Movers are dead ringers for [[SeldomSeenSpecies Cuvier's beaked whales]]. At least they're still cetaceans!

[[caption-width-right:260:Ah, yes. The blue furred, horned, long-snouted tiger. [[Film/NapoleonDynamite Bred for its skills in magic]].]]

** Warcraft raptors also have feathers, which is accurate, [[ScienceMarchesOn though it wasn't known to be so when the models were designed in the early 2000s.]]
** Although they have now stated in several places that raptors actually pick feathers from other animals and use them for decoration, which once again brings them squarely into the realm of fiction.
** Also several of ''Warcraft'''s [[OurMonstersAreDifferent mythical creatures are]] ''[[OurMonstersAreDifferent very]]'' [[OurMonstersAreDifferent different]]. Hippogryphs are half-raven, half-elk rather than the usual half-eagle, half-horse, and Wyverns are a cross between a bat, a lion, and a scorpion, closer to the classic description of [[CallAPegasusAHippogriff the Manticore than the expected two-legged dragon]].

** Heck, very nearly every animal of ''every'' type in the series has horns, tusks, saber teeth, or some combination of the above. In particular, [[MorphicResonance no matter their form]], Tauren druids are [[JustForPun always horny.]]

* In Creator/CJCherryh's ''Literature/{{Foreigner}}'' series this is (unsuccessfully) [[DefiedTrope defied]] by one of the first human biologists to land on the world of the alien ''atevi''. The biologist argues that though there are things on the atevi's planet that look and act a lot like grass/trees/etc from the old Earth of the humans, ''calling'' them grass/trees/etc could cause humans to assume that they're exactly like the Earth lifeforms when there might be important, yet-to-be-discovered differences. The biologist is ignored and the human colonists wind up calling them grass/trees/etc.

*** Several dialects of French, notably Cajun, call ladybugs "vaches du Bon Dieu", "the Good Lord's cows." Similarly mantises are "chevaux de diable", "the devil's horses".

* ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'': Captain Olimar crash lands on a strange world and comes up with names -- common ''and'' scientific -- for many of the plants and animals. A whole family of creatures get christened "[[http://www.pikminwiki.com/Red_Bulborb Bulborbs]]" because Olimar thinks they look like his ''pet dog'', Bulbie. To clarify, it's not so much that ''these'' smeerps are being called rabbits: it's that the ones on his own planet are.

* A variant occurs in David Weber's ''Literature/{{Safehold}}'' books. The humans who have settled on the planet Safehold brought lots of earth life with them, but the local animals are named after mythical beasts. Examples include the kraken (described as a cross between a squid and a shark, fitting the latter's place in Safeholdian ecology), the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragon]] (a massive, six-legged animal that comes in both carnivorous and herbivorous varieties), and the wyvern (''four''-winged flyers that are the Safeholdian analogue of birds). There are also more classic examples--there are Safeholdian grasshoppers, narwhales, and sea cows. The grasshopper is a great example of this trope--the Safeholdian grasshopper can grow up to nine inches long and is carnivorous.

** Calling Targs (spikey warthog-looking things) and Sehlats "cats" (or "kitties") comes to mind. The Sehlat is also called the Vulcan equivalent of a teddy bear, despite not appearing all that similar to a terrestrial teddy bear. It's alive, for one thing. As Spock was quick to point out (when [=McCoy=] seemed amused that he owned a "teddy bear" as a child) it also has six-inch fangs. According to [[WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries the animated series]] and ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'', Sehlats resemble a cross between a polar bear and a smilodon, and they are quite large.

** In America, at least, the "sweet potato" (''I. batatas'') is also called a "yam". The problem is that a yam is a completely different vegetable (''Dioscorea'' spp.) that 'resembles' the sweet potato only in that it is an edible root; sweet potatoes are generally about six inches long, thin-skinned, and related to morning glories. Yams are tough-skinned, up to 8 feet long, can weigh 100+ pounds, and are related to lianas (those things Tarzan swung on). Presumably the sweet potato (New World) being called a yam (Old World) is because most agricultural workers in (Anglophone) America were African slaves, who applied this trope to the local root vegetables (yams are a major staple crop in much of Africa, including many places the slaves came from). The sweet potato is also a common term for the ocarina, which is a musical instrument and not edible (except in the context of some Music/PDQBach works).

* Creator/GeneWolfe's ''Literature/BookOfTheNewSun'', full stop. Wolfe's use of archaic but real terms is awe-inspiring. Of particular note are the "destriers" of Urth, which are carnivorous, fanged, and capable of charging at 90 miles an hour. The names of prehistoric animals crop up pretty often as well, but the notes in the back seem to indicate that these are not necessarily revived species (although the narrator seems to think they are) and might be whole new (but fairly similar) creatures.

[[caption-width-right:260:Ah, yes. The blue furred, horned tiger. [[Film/NapoleonDynamite Bred for its skills in magic]].]]

* ''Fanfic/{{Eleutherophobia: How I Live Now'' begins with Tom wanting to jailbreak a touch-activated Yeerk communication device shaped like a bubble. He calls it a cell phone.

** The "[[http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/bestiary.html?fmob=938 Raptors]]" in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' are [[DinosaursAreDragons small, flightless, stumpy-winged dragons]], no matter how much Square wants to identify them as [[http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/maniraptora.html Maniraptors]]. (The fact that they breath fire and lightning makes it even worse.) The rabbits and hares in the game have a lack of front paws, although a subspecies of them are called [[CallARabbitASmeerp Rarabs]].

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has a variety of frilled theropod with chicken legs, no arms, and an axe-shaped beak. A common name for them is "pelicans". Even another common name, "ziz", fails to be representative of the mythological GiantFlyer.

* Similar to the koala "bear", in Costa Rican Spanish sloths are called ''oso perezoso'' (lazy bear, sometimes shortened to perezoso),[[note]]Not to be confused with the actual [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloth_bear sloth bear]]![[/note]] and anteaters are called "oso hormiguero" (ant bear). Neither are closely related to bears.
* In Hindustani, ''shere'' can mean both lions... and tigers. In the original Persian, it strictly refers to lions, but in the Indian subcontinent, where tigers are far more numerous (although lions exist too), the term has been appropriated to refer to tigers as well. Hence why [[Literature/TheJungleBook Shere Khan]] is a Bengal tiger instead of an Asiatic lion. Ironically, Mowgli's friend Bagheera is named after the more common Hindustani word for "tigers", except he's a leopard instead.

* Lamphaded in ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' when Luz hears that the Boiling Isles has {{Literal Bookworm}}s, leading her to comment that on Earth it's just a cute name for nerds.

** Calling Targs (spikey warthog-looking things) and Sehlats "cats" (or "kitties") comes to mind. The Sehlat is also called the Vulcan equivalent of a teddy bear, despite not appearing all that similar to a terrestrial teddy bear. It's alive, for one thing. As Spock was quick to point out (when [=McCoy=] seemed amused that he owned a "teddy bear" as a child) it also has six-inch fangs. According to [[WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries the animated series]] and ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'', Sehlats resemble a cross between a polar bear and a smilodon, and they are quite large. One assumes their domesticated relatives come in a similar range of sizes and temperaments to terrestrial dogs.

** "Platinum" is seen as a strong, hard metal which is commonly used for machines and cannot be bent, and is much less dense than actual platinum. Most of the traits of the Avatar world's "platinum" are more similar to titanium than to actual platinum, to the point you can argue it's titanium being called platinum.

* ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'': The species the main characters belong to has massively long [[PointyEars pointy ears]] and apparently unlimited [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair hair colors]] (often even multicolored), and its sages have [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation green, blue, red or yellow]] skin. What do they call themselves? Humans.

* The titular creature of the Japanese webcomic "[[https://danbooru.donmai.us/pools/15942 Something like a cat]]" is black-furred, has triangular ears, and has big eyes. There the similarities end as it displays LovecraftianSuperpwoers galore, and despite the protagonist's extra-strength PerceptionFilter (who treats it like an abandoned cat), some people do notice that it is very much not a cat.