History Main / MisplacedWildlife

!!Examples

* Both used and averted in ''ComicBook/IncredibleHulk'' #250 when SilverSurfer visited the North Pole and encountered large groups of penguins. To avert a storm of No-Prizes, the [[NoteFromEd editor]] wrote in the bottom of the panel that he knew penguins lived on the opposite side of the world but the artist drew them so cute that he left them in.

Occasionally, a movie or TV show will attempt to justify MisplacedWildlife by identifying an animal onscreen, such as that White-throated Sparrow, as [[LampshadeHanging something ''completely'' different]] - even if it's a species that looks nothing like the creature onscreen.

Also, sometimes [[NoisyNature background sound effects]] contain sounds of animals not native to the setting of the film/TV show. Perhaps the most notorious example is the use of the distinctive "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc_-icFHwQo laugh]]" of the [[AustralianWildlife Australian kookaburra]] in jungle scenes set in Africa, or anywhere else other than Australia. This began with MGM's early-30s jungle movies like ''Tarzan, the Ape Man'', and ever since, '''everybody''' [[TheCoconutEffect has used this sound as jungle background]].

* ''Disney/{{Dinosaur}}'' had prosauropods and a ''Brachiosaurus'' interacting with Cretaceous-period dinosaurs, as well as ''lemurs'', which did not evolve until well after dinosaurs went extinct. Meanwhile the ''Carnotaurus'' that appeared was found only in South America, with relatives in Africa and southern Europe. Thus, this movie had MisplacedWildlife ''and'' AnachronismStew simultaneously. The opening scene also featured a ''Koolasuchus'', which was a giant amphibian that ''only'' thrived in arctic regions (the South Pole, to be precise, on the exact opposite part of the planet). Even taking tectonic shift into account, those didn't belong there.

** In general, KungFuPanda notably averts this trope. Especially in the [[KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness tv show]], where the wildlife is ''so'' accurate that you [[SeldomSeenSpecies probably won't recognize some of them]].

* The "venomous snakes" in the temple in ''Film/TheMummyReturns'' are mainly coral snake mimics. Coral snakes and their mimics live in the Americas, not in Egypt. If you're using prop or CG snakes ''anyway'' (and they were, at least when snakes were being kicked or thrown around) there is really no excuse for them to be MisplacedWildlife. Probably intentional, given writer/director Stephen Sommers' love for 1930s films in all their absurdity.

* A park ranger on ''Series/{{Bones}}'' once tried to kick the show's crime scene investigators out of her park, on the grounds that their activities might disrupt a migratory flight path for a rare species of booby. All 6 species of booby are native to tropical islands and coastlines, mainly in the Pacific, so would have no reason to migrate over a crime scene that's within driving distance of Washington D.C. Except to let Booth make the inevitable "boobies" wisecrack, of course.

* In ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'', Morbius keeps a surprising menagerie of Earth animals on Altair-IV, which hadn't been brought there aboard the Bellerophon with Morbius and the other colonists. The theory is advanced that these animals could have evolved on Altair-IV and subsequently have been brought to Earth by Krell AncientAstronauts -- but their Earthlike protective coloration is clearly inappropriate for this alien planet. Then one of these animals is accidentally killed, and an autopsy suggests that this MisplacedWildlife is not "wildlife" at all...

* In ''TheMagicSchoolBus Explores the World of Animals'', you have to identify MisplacedWildlife and send it back where it belongs.

** In general, KungFuPanda notably averts this trope, in the [[KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness tv show]] especially. The wildlife is ''so'' accurate that you [[SeldomSeenSpecies probably won't recognize some of them]].

* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' has an elderly Galapagos tortoise living in ancient China as one of the film's main characters, while the sequel featured evil [[ManiacMonkeys gorillas]] (native to Africa).

* A very tongue-in-cheek one from ''HarryPotter'': Hogwarts has a giant squid. Living in a lake. In northern Scotland. AWizardDidIt.

* The ''TombRaider'' series sometimes places species in locations where they either never existed or are now extinct (for example, lions in Egypt and China, where they are long gone, brown bears in Peru, and piranhas in India and the South Pacific). To say nothing of the dinosaurs.

* The 1943 film serial based on ''ComicStrip/ThePhantom'' is set in such a stock Hollywood jungle that they never bother to specify which continent it's on. It doesn't matter: the variety of jungle animals the Phantom encounters is such that wherever it is there's at least one animal that doesn't belong.

* The ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' games take everything that would make a realistic setting and gleefully throw it out the window, as can be expected from a series that places [[AnachronismStew vending machines]] in [[WelcomeToTheCaribbeanLuv 17th century Caribbean]]. It comes with plenty of {{lampshad|eHanging}}ing.

* Bluebirds are not native to England, so there's very little chance of them flying over the White Cliffs of Dover -- something the cliffs' current guardians admit freely: "Obviously bluebirds sounded more romantic than sea gulls!"

* ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'' has newts living in saltwater habitats and a coral reef that would be more appropriate off the coast of Australia than in the chilly Atlantic Ocean. The sequel also features a walrus living in what appears to be Antarctica.

* Justified in ''Film/{{Komodo}}''. The film takes place on an island off the coast of South Carolina, while komodo dragons live in Indonesia. A bunch of komodo eggs were left on the island by someone back in the 70s, causing the Komodos to show up there. It still doesn't explain how they could survive that long in a radically different climate.

* Justified in ''{{Komodo}}''. The film takes place on an island off the coast of South Carolina, while komodo dragons live in Indonesia. A bunch of komodo eggs were left on the island by someone back in the 70s, causing the Komodos to show up there. It still doesn't explain how they could survive that long in a radically different climate.

* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' has an elderly Galapagos tortoise living in ancient China as one of the film's main characters, while the sequel featured evil [[ManiacMonkeys gorillas]] (native to Africa) commanding armies of evil [[BigBadassWolf wolves]].

* The 1978 film ''The Water Babies'' has a (freshwater) electric eel working for a shark BigBad under the ocean, and lets its lobster, seahorse, and swordfish characters move freely into rivers.

* AlanDeanFoster's ''Spellsinger'' series takes place in a fantasy world where all mammals, birds, amphibians and turtles are sentient. Few of the animal species he encounters should be living on the same continent, let alone in the same village.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvAAASZlCmM This]] video. "We've got lions and tigers, only in Kenyaaaaa~"

* The [[http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/05/24 May 24, 1986]] ''CalvinAndHobbes'' strip has Calvin imagining him being a crocodile in the amazon. Okay, but he then imagines his dad as a hippopotamus.

* The posthumous AlexandreDumas novel ''Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine'' features tigers, pythons, alligators, vampire bats (only mentioned by the main character) and the Kraken (mentioned by the narrator) as creatures that can be encountered in the jungles and lakes of, wait for it... ''India''.

** No, but they are extremely territorial and aggressive.

** To be fair, King Richard the ''Lion-Hearted'', and by extension hi brother, were going to be lions. The movie was going for symbolism rather than staying with European species.

** To be fair, in the third movie the dinosaurs ''are'' extinct for the most part. It's implied that the dinosaurs in the movie have been living underground and therefore managed to escape whatever it was that killed the rest of their species. The other characters are surprised to see them, because they know there should be no more dinosaurs.