History Main / LivingGasbag

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/{{Dogora}}'' is a Japanese film involving diamond thieves and a giant space jellyfish.
[[/folder]]

* ''Literature/{{Cryptozoologicon}}'': In ''Volume 1'', the mysterious "Flying Rods" sometimes seen in photos and videos (actually just badly exposed moths) are imagined as "workers" for a floating HiveQueen resembling a transparent living blimp who lives her entire life hidden in the clouds.

* ''Literature/{{Leviathan}}'': Huxleys are floating jellyfish-creatures used for (slow) transport and scouting missions. So, who's up for being hoisted aloft by a living weather-balloon that vents its gas when frightened?

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The solar system where the main setting is located also contains the gas giants Bretheda and Liavara. These are home to the barathu, gelatinous creatures vaguely resembling a cross between a jellyfish and sea squirt, with no discernible external features save for trailing clusters of tentacles and several hydrogen sacs for flotation, who lead mostly nomadic lives in the endless skies of their homeworlds.
* ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'': Jovian Gasbags are gigantic jellyfish-like organisms that float in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, feeding on whatever passes by them. The Saturnian Krakens are possibly this, but since very little is known about them no-one is certain.

** The gas spore is a floating, spherical fungus that contains high-pressure, buoyant gas filled with spores and explodes if hit.

** ''Literature/{{Matter}}: The Xinthian Tensile Aeranothaurs are stated to rival the Behemothaurs in scale, and their name and description suggests a similar lifeform, however the relationship between the two, if any, is unclear.

* ''Literature/TheCulture'': Dirigible Behemothaurs, possibly the largest living creatures in the setting. They inhabit Airspheres, vast areas of space that maintain a consistent atmosphere inside them. Entire ecosystems of other lifeforms can exist on a Behemothaur, and anyone trying to harm one of them get utterly annihilated by protective energy beings from another dimension.

[[quoteright:250:[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/netch_4677.png]]]][[caption-width-right:250:Don't trust these guys, they're full of hot air.]]

Lightweight, floating creatures are a great way to dress-up your AlienSky or populate a [[SingleBiomePlanet gas giant]]. Typically hollow, and filled with a light gas of some sort, these creatures usually resemble blimps or jellyfish or some strange hybrid. They may be [[GiantFlyer large]] or small. If large, they may be used as [[LivingShip transportation]] by the natives or colonists. If they're filled with hydrogen, expect them to be highly explosive.

** The Gas Spore, which contains buoyant gas with spores and explodes if hit.
** The Lurker Above is a large (20 feet wide) monster that generates a gas in sacs in its body that give it neutral buoyancy. It uses its large "wings" to fly around.

* In ''[[http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/HorHei.shtml The Horror of the Heights]]'' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a luckless aviator stumbles onto a whole high-atmosphere ecosystem of diaphanous floating organisms, many of which are similar to giant jellies.

* ''WebOriginal/{{Mortasheen}}'' has the [[http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/miasmadusa.htm Miasmadusa]], which is something like a gas-filled Man 'O War and can rain down deadly toxins on their opponents.

** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-312 SCP-312 ("Atmospheric Jellyfish")]]. It's a large jellyfish-like creature that floats in the air by heating atmospheric gasses within itself. It can release water vapor and control air currents to create a cloud around itself as camouflage. It hunts humans and floats above them. If the human looks up at the creature it will suck the human up into itself with a wind vortex and consume it.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1158 SCP-1158 ("Arboreal Jellyfish Puppeteers")]]. SCP-1158 is an airborne, carnivorous predator that resembles a large Portuguese man-o-war (jellyfish). It floats using hydrogen produced from bacterial decay.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1308 SCP-1308 ("Hungarian Floater")]]. SCP-1308 has a number of internal cavities filled with hydrogen gas. It propels itself by flapping its body using muscular contractions.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1784 SCP-1784 ("Skywriter Sloths")]]. The sloths use electrolysis to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen. They store the hydrogen in an internal bladder and use it to float in the air. They store the oxygen and use it to supplement their breathing at high altitudes.
* On [[http://planetfuraha.blogspot.ca/2008/09/ballonts-ii.html several]] [[http://planetfuraha.blogspot.ca/2011/07/ballooning-animals-and-newtonian.html entries]] [[http://planetfuraha.blogspot.ca/2009/08/lighter-than-air-mechanical.html in]] [[http://planetfuraha.blogspot.ca/2013/08/ballonts-in-gas-giants-ballonts-v.html this]] [[http://planetfuraha.blogspot.ca/2011/07/ballonts-under-pressure-ballonts-iv.html blog]], the writer closely examines the physical possibility of living gasbags (or as she calls them, "ballonts"). In short, a ballont would need to be very large to get afloat in an Earth-like atmosphere in RealLife; a ten-metre wide hydrogen gasbag could lift around 500kg, which would account for its organs and limbs. This poses problems for how such a creature would reproduce, since living gasbags are inefficient below a certain size. Thus, the author concludes that living gasbags are unlikely to evolve on Earth-like planets. The most suitable environment for a realistic floater to develop would be a large terrestrial planet, with high surface gravity, and an atmosphere rich in heavy gases (in other words, something like Venus).

* As commented above, scientists such as Creator/CarlSagan have suggested {{Living Gasbag}}s could thrive on gas giant planets such as Jupiter. He even [[http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1976ApJS...32..737S thought]] on the types of "floaters" that could exist and on the ecological niches they could inhabit[[note]]If you don't want to read the abstract or the paper: "sinkers" (the equivalent of Earth's phytoplankton (read: microscopic algae and the like), who would not have enough buoyancy and would sink from the planet's high atmosphere to its depths where they'd die), "floaters" (able to regulate their buoyancy, thus floating as balloons of the atmosphere and feeding on the formers or being as them autotrophs), "hunters" (self-explanatory, fast, flying predators that feed on "floaters" for sustenance and to replenish their gas supply), and "scavengers" (also self-explanatory, those living in the depths of the planet just above where conditions are too harsh for life to exist and living off what falls from above)[[/note]].

* Creator/{{Chaosium}}'s supplement ''All the Worlds' Monsters'' Volume III": The Four Eyed Hig is a cube-shaped monster filled with helium that grants it neutral buoyancy. Each face of its body has an organic propeller to move itself around.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'': Water octoroks are normally aquatic, but they can float through the air when changes in barometric pressure cause gases in their bodies to inflate, swelling them up like balloons and lifting them out of the water. Sky octoroks float all the time, thanks to lighter-than-air gases filling their mantles. All octorok types will drop their internal flotation bladders when slain, which if attached to objects will automatically inflated and lift their burdens into the air.

* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'': A UniqueEnemy on the east coast of Lake Hylia, called the Octoballoon, resembles a bloated Octorok floating a short distance above the ground.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' portrays octoroks, a recurring kind of octopus-like enemies, like this. Water octoroks are normally aquatic, but they can float through the air when changes in barometric pressure cause gases in their bodies to inflate, swelling them up like balloons and lifting them out of the water. Sky octoroks float all the time, thanks to lighter-than-air gases filling their mantles. All octorok types will drop their internal flotation bladders when slain, which if attached to objects will automatically inflated and lift their burdens into the air.

* In the second episode of ''[[Manga/TwoThousandOneNights TO]]'', "Symbiotic Planet", one of the colonists has been studying some floating spheres, and feels he may have made friends with some. This is later proven to be true when a group of them sacrifice themselves to protect his colony from incoming missiles.
* In the film ''Anime/ATreeOfPalme'', the (apparently alien) planet is inhabited by a lot of floating jelly-fish like things. One type are referred to as "grass" and they may be the equivalent of plants, though there are also some earthly plants on this planet in a few places.

* ''Literature/TheSunborn'', by Creator/GregoryBenford, has strange alien gasbags discovered on Pluto, which show signs of intelligence.
* ''Literature/InterstellarPig'' by Creator/WilliamSleator has a gas-filled flying octopus.
* ''The Leeshore'' by Creator/RobertReed takes place on a planet completely surrounded by biological gas bags so densely that sunlight almost never reaches the surface -- the only sunlight is around the only settlement's decrepit SpaceElevator, as its point defenses blast any approaching gas bags.
* Creator/DavidBrin has used this more than once:
** In the ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series, the Bahtwin were uplifted from a lighter-than-air gasbag species that floated in their homeworld's atmosphere.
** ''Literature/GlorySeason'' has the zoor, flying jellyfish-like creatures which range from twenty meters up. Sailors like to tie ribbons and messages to their tentacles, and the larger ones can lift a child.
* The ''Literature/GaeaTrilogy'' has the Blimps, floating sapient creatures which live inside of the [[GeniusLoci Living Planet]] Titan, and often serve as a means of transportation. The one known as Whistlestop gives our heroes a ride in the first book.
* In ''Literature/TheRedTapeWar'', one of the three beings named Millard Fillmore Pierce is a sapient floating gasbag who is checking out our universe with an eye towards invasion.

** ''2010: The Year We Make Contact'' (the second book of ''Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries''), had the noncorporeal Bowman journeying down through the Jovian atmosphere, where he sees gigantic non-sentient living beings in various geometric shapes floating through the clouds and consuming similar smaller creatures.
** "Meeting with Medusa" featured the discovery of a miles-long jellyfish-like creature floating in the atmosphere of Jupiter. (In biology, ''medusa'' is a term applied to certain forms of jellyfish.)
* ''Medea: Harlan's World''. One of the alien races created for Creator/HarlanEllison's shared world project Medea was a gasbag filled with hydrogen that could float through the air.
* ''Literature/{{Expedition}}'' by Creator/WayneBarlowe, and the SpeculativeDocumentary based on it, ''Alien Planet'', feature the many alien species which float above the ground in Darwin IV. One example is the almost-sapient [[StarfishAlien Eosapien]].
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Beldon Beldons]], creatures resembling titanic, bulbous jellyfish, native to Bespin float in the gas giant's upper atmosphere and produc Tibanna gas.
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/StarmanJones''. The floating gasbag aliens (which the humans call "hobgoblin balloons") are used by the [[OurCentaursAreDifferent centaur aliens]] as spies. They are capable of moving on their own, not just drifting on the wind.

%%* ''Literature/HumanxCommonwealth'': Several planets have animals like these.
* ''Literature/StarCarrier'': The H'rulka are a race of [[TheWormThatWalks colony organisms]] (think Portuguese man o' war) that live in the upper atmospheres of hydrogen/helium gas giants. The colonies form floating organisms upwards of 200 meters long.

* ''Literature/{{Leviathan}}'': Huxleys are floating jellyfish-creatures used for (slow) transport and scouting missions. So, who's up for being hoisted aloft by a living weather-balloon that vents its gas when frightened?
* ''Literature/{{Cryptozoologicon}}'': In ''Volume 1'', the mysterious "Flying Rods" sometimes seen in photos and videos (actually just badly exposed moths) are imagined as "workers" for a floating HiveQueen resembling a transparent living blimp who lives her entire life hidden in the clouds.
* ''Literature/ShardsOfHonor'' opens with a survey of a newly-found planet among whose fauna are a particularly vivid (and gruesome) species of air-jellyfish. They land on herbivores and suck their blood, their transparent envelopes looking like wine-glasses as they fill up. Since they float using hydrogen, the protagonists are also able to use one as an improvised bomb.

* ''Ares'' magazine #2 article "An Exozoological Sampler". The Baloonalo is a 100 meter wide spherical alien creature that lives in the atmosphere of a gas giant planet. It creates, heats and stores hydrogen inside itself to provide buoyancy.

* This should go under TextbookHumor, but to be scientifically exact, the [[FanNickname Blaue Blätter]] aren't, but the info organ of the German Chemistry Society. Each [[AprilFoolsDay April month]], they run assorted chemistry gags. Relevant one here: An alien species on Jupiter(?), surely falling under this trope, has detected wacky chemistry on Earth and speculates whether this might indicated life, but stays scientifically solid on the inconclusive evidence. The reference to a [[FictionalDocument "Monography on Chemistry in Non-Ammonia Solutions"]] (read: water) is epic alone.
* In ''The Flight of Dragons,'' Peter Dickinson reimagines, well, [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] in this way. He postulates that large internal hydrogen compartments explain not only [[TitleDrop the flight of dragons]], but their fire-breathing (venting excess hydrogen and then igniting it), legendary toxicity (the internal biochemistry needed to generate the hydrogen would be rather corrosive), and even treasure-hoarding (when you constantly sweat acid, you need something chemically inert, e.g. gold, to nest in).
* It's something of a throwaway detail, but ''Literature/AlienInASmallTown'' makes passing mention of bioengineered "bioblimps," which are literally living blimps used for transportation. Apparently they're long out of fashion by the time of the story, but Indira notices one passing overhead and speculates on how old it may be.

* ''Series/CosmosAPersonalVoyage'': In one episode, Creator/CarlSagan theorizes that life existing on a gas giant planet such as Jupiter would be most likely to evolve into this form.
* ''Series/UltraQ'': The title creature in "Balloonga" is a blimp-like creature from Saturn that can expand ad infinitum as long as it has a steady supply of energy.

*** Issue #52. The Pelin is a large aerial creature that extracts hydrogen and helium and uses it to float, much like a zeppelin.
*** Issue #58. The Sull is a large creature that looks like a flying saucer. It floats by using buoyant gasses created by its digestive system and stored in its central hump. It moves around by sucking in air and spraying it (and its buoyancy gasses) out in the appropriate direction.
** On a smaller scale, there's the Gas Spore, which contains buoyant gas with spores and explodes if hit.
** The Lurker Above is a large (20 feet wide) monster that generates a gas in sacs in its body that give it neutral buoyancy. It uses its large "wings" to fly around.
** Decaton modrons can create a lighter-than-air gas inside their bodies that allows them to rise into the air and fly at a slow speed.

** ''TabletopGame/DarkSun'' has Floaters, a species of sentient (if somewhat dumb) hydrogen jellyfish. If hit by fire-based attacks, they take quadruple damage and have a 75% chance of exploding like a blimp filled with hydrogen.

** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'': The xantravar is a monster that stores hydrogen gas in flotation chambers in its heads. It takes in or expels the gas to rise or sink. The gas can be expelled in specific directions, thus acting as a steering jet. If the gas contacts fire it will burst into flames, burning anything within 10 feet.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The solar system where the main setting is located also contains the gas giants Bretheda and Liavara. These are home to the barathu, gelatinous creatures vaguely resembling a cross between a jellyfish and sea squirt, with no discernible external features save for trailing clusters of tentacles and several hydrogen sacs for flotation, who lead mostly nomadic lives in the endless skies of their homeworlds.
* [=SPI=]'s ''Universe'' science fiction RPG. In the list of encounters in the adventure guide, alien #28 has a balloon-like gasbag body with 6 two-foot long tentacles hanging from it. It is a {{Plant Alien|s}} that maintains buoyancy by producing lighter-than-air gasses inside its body out of air and sunlight. It propels itself by squirting gasses out its underside.
* ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'': Jovian Gasbags are gigantic jellyfish-like organisms that float in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, feeding on whatever passes by them. The Saturnian Krakens are possibly this, but since very little is known about them no-one is certain.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Arduin}}'' RPG. ''The Compleat Arduin Book 2: Resources'': Airsharks have hydrogen gas bladders that allow them to swim through the air the way normal sharks swim through water. Fire-based attacks against them can cause them to explode in a fireball that is 5 feet in diameter for each 10 HitPoints the airshark has.
* Creator/{{Chaosium}}'s supplement ''All the Worlds' Monsters'' Volume III" The Four Eyed Hig is a cube-shaped monster filled with helium that grants it neutral buoyancy. Each face of its body has an organic propeller to move itself around.
* ''TabletopGame/LordsOfCreation'': The ''Heroes'' article "Survival Run of the Starnomads" describes Stinger-Spear Squids, alien creatures that contain sacs filled with helium gas, allowing them to float in the air. They have tubes that blow out helium and propel them.
* ''TabletopGame/StarFrontiers'': ''Volturnus: Planet of Mystery'' describes the air whale, an alien creature that produces hydrogen as a byproduct of digestion. The hydrogen is stored in sacs inside its body and provides the lift that allows it to float. It maneuvers by venting compressed hydrogen through tubes.
* ''TabletopGame/CyborgCommando'': The Xenoborgs (alien invaders) can split water into hydrogen and oxygen. They can store the hydrogen inside themselves and use it to rise into the air and achieve limited flight.

* In ''VideoGame/StarCraft'', the Zerg Overlords are helium-filled gasbags that move with psychic power. They can carry other Zerg, and their psychic ability is required for controlling a swarm. ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' adds Overseers, an evolution of Overlords, and Corrupters, who also seem to work on the gasbag principle.
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' has the Engineers/Huragok, an artificial race of {{Gadgeteer Genius}}es who resemble a large purplish floating gas-bag with a blueish tentacled slug sticking out of it. Interestingly enough, they're named after how buoyant their gases were at birth, eg "Lighter Than Some", "Prone to Drift", "Requires Adjustment", etc.
* ''VideoGame/Prey2006'' has strange floating gas-bag creatures that spit acid living inside of The Sphere.
* In ''VideoGame/StarControl'', the Slylandro are floating translucent gas bags with [[ExoticEquipment glowy bits]] inside them. If you call them gas bags in dialog, they return the (friendly) insult by calling you a human fluid sack.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' has the Netch, giant flying jellyfish that provide the page image. Males ("bull netch") are larger with leathery brown hides, and can shoot poison. Females ("betty netch") are smaller and translucent blue in color, with stronger physical attacks. The native Dunmer (Dark Elves) domesticate them and use their hides as leather.
** Netch return in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''[='s=] ''Dragonborn'' DLC, having drifted from Vvardenfell to Solstheim after Red Mountain erupted.
* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'':
** Puffy and Withering Blowhogs are floating, air-filled creatures resembling nothing so much as colorful party balloons with fins, eyes, short trunks and series of holes down their sides. Their main attacks consist of blowing gusts of air out of their bodies to blow your Pikmin about, and they deflate when they die, swiftly shrinking to a fraction of their former size.
** Jellyfloats are essentially hovering, air-filled jellyfish that suck up their prey rather than sting it. The Medusal Slurkers that replace them in ''Pikmin 3'' work much the same way, with the addition of a dandelion-like puff sprouting from their tops as an extra flotation device.
* ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion III'' added a class of races called "Etherians" to the series, consisting of two races, the Eoladi and Imsaeis, who inhabited gas giants. The Eoladi were whale-like gas bags, while the Imsaeis were more like gigantic gaseous jellyfish.
* ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' has Gasbags and Giant Gasbags, basically balloons with tiny arms and big eyes, which float towards you slowly and shoot fireballs.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Mass Effect|1}}'', Eden Prime has "Gasbags" as part of its local wildlife, being completely harmless according to Jenkins. The tutorial has you optionally use one for target practice.
* Many of the organisms in ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' float this way, including the titular Metroids.

* ''VideoGame/AdventureToAtlantis'': One of the monsters you can encounter is the Air Squid. It fills itself with lighter-than-air gasses and floats around. When it encounters a potential victim it descends and attacks with its tentacles.
* The ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' franchise has several examples.
** Drifloon and Drifblim are living floating balloons, and despite having a largely nonthreatening appearance, the former are known to abduct children (or try to anyway: they're not nearly strong enough to lift a child off the ground). Drifblim is mostly peaceful, however.
** Koffing are spherical floating bags filled with toxic gases, with pores all over them for releasing those gases. Its evolved form, Weezing, is two Koffing fused together.
** The Jigglypuff line is a subversion; though gasbags, they don't fly. (Except in the [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} anime.]] In a few episodes, Harley's Wigglytuff does get airborne, though he has very little control once up there.) In ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'', Jigglypuff ''does'' have a very "floaty" jump, giving it a rather slow descent whenever it does so.
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun: Firestorm'' has Tiberian Floaters, mutated lifeforms that look like giant jellyfish who release tiberium gas as a form of propulsion and attack with electric shocks. They're also incredibly dangerous and very annoying.
* A UniqueEnemy on the east coast of Lake Hylia in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', called the Octoballoon. It promptly explodes, scattering its tiny young.
* ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'': The thirteenth colossus ([[FanNickname Phalanx]]) is a giant flying worm with dragonfly like wings that clearly don't do enough to keep it airborne. It also has large gas sacks which it presumably uses for lift, since shooting them with arrows deflates them and brings it down low enough for you to reach.

* ''VideoGame/SchizmMysteriousJourney'' has an entire level filled with these. Some of them have mechanical attachments that you can interact with, and one uses a gas from the atmosphere to fill up small blimps for transportation.
* A Xen creature called the "Flocking Floater" was scrapped from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' before its release. Normally, groups of these would drift benignly in the sky. When shot, though, they would fire gas at you until killed, making the gasbags on their heads deflate upon hitting the ground.
* ''VideoGame/{{Kirby}}'' is normally not a gasbag, but he can turn into one by inhaling air and flapping his stubby arms. Dedede can do the same.
* Brother Montgolfier from ''VideoGame/{{Turgor}}'' may or may not be this: the upper half of his body sticks out of a giant balloon, and nothing is known what did he look like before he was forced to alter his body, just like the rest of the Brothers. If you challenge him to a fight, be prepared that his balloon is not just for flying: in a pinch, he will purposely crash down on the floor, causing an explosion so huge you won't be able to survive it without protective sigils.
* The jellyfish monsters in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' float this way according to WordOfGod.
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'': Most of the flying critters in the game clearly have gas sacs keeping them aloft, ranging from the man-sized floating jellyfish to [[GiantFlyer Giant Fliers]] like Colubrims. Even the land-bound Millesaurs (utterly enormous dinosaur things) are noted to have huge gas bags in their bodies, lightening them to the point they don't collapse under their own body weight.
* ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'' had a creature in its earlier stages of development called the Magma Wyrm that feeds on ignimbrite crystals as a larva, filtering out the hydrogen into a ballast sack to float as an adult. Unlike most examples, their store of ballast is limited by the amount they consumed as a larva and they eventually run out and sink to the ground where they're easy prey.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' has an enemy named the Gasbagon. It's a monster in the dragon family which is inflated like a balloon. Because they're filled with fire and explosive gasses, they often end up using [[TakingYouWithMe Kamikazee]] attacks. There is also a tougher version called the [[{{Pun}} Noble Gasbagon]].

* The Oafa from ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''. They're giant, sentient sacs of hydrogen gas who use artificial speakers to communicate. Interestingly they use the same Galstandard Peroxide dialect as the aquatic Schuul.

* ''WebOriginal/{{Mortasheen}}'' has the [[http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/miasmadusa.htm Miasmadusa]], which is something like a gas-filled Man 'O War and can rain down deadly toxins on their opponents.

* Pretty much all the native life on Terra in ''WesternAnimation/BattleForTerra'' consists of this, including its sapient inhabitants the Terrians.
* ''WesternAnimation/TitanAE'' has a plant version, filled with hydrogen.

* The jellyfish-like Airwhales of Jupiter feature in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/StarcomTheUSSpaceforce.''

* In ''Literature/Wheelers'', there's a sapient species called 'blimps' living in Jupiter's atmosphere, maintaining their buoyancy with 'liftgas'.

* ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'': The thirteenth colossus ([[AllThereInTheManual Phalanx]]) is a giant flying worm with dragonfly like wings that clearly don't do enough to keep it airborne. It also has large gas sacks which it presumably uses for lift, since shooting them with arrows deflates them and brings it down low enough for you to reach.
* ''VideoGame/{{Nethack}}'': The Gas Spores from ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' also appear here, and they are the bane of all [[LeeroyJenkins leeroys]].

* Exactly one enemy in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast''. It promptly explodes.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' has an enemy named the Gasbagon. It's a monster in the dragon family which is inflated like a balloon. Because they're filled with fire and explosive gasses, they often end up using [[TakingYouWithMe Kamikazee]] attacks. There is also a tougher version called the [[JustForPun Noble Gasbagon.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** Creator/{{FASA}}'s supplement ''Rescue on Galatea'': On the title planet is an aquatic alien creature called the muqath that's like a jellyfish with a shell. It has sacs filled with lighter-than-air gas that it uses for flight.