History Main / MisplacedWildlife

* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': Only applicaple retroactively, since we don't learn until the final book that [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield the town the Animorphs live in]] is in California, where there are no wild wolves (or green anoles, which Jake morphed in the first book). In the third book, they encounter a pack of real wolves while in wolf morph. The authors have stated that they wanted kids living anywhere in the USA to be able to imagine the plot happening in their town (though it was confirmed to be a coastal city in the first book).

* Lions are grassland-, desert- and woodland-dwelling animals, but older literature often places them in the depths of the African rainforest. Tigers may sometimes be found in Africa as well, despite being strictly Asian animals. These cases have become rather rare in modern works, however, and are rarely used in non-parodic manners anymore.
* Supposedly scary things like snakes, lizards, scorpions, and spiders will consist of whatever the pet store had in stock. Never mind where these animals live. Never mind if they're even really dangerous either - in which case it overlaps with TerrifyingPetStoreRat.

* Minor example in the manga of ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheHauntsOfEvil'', but one panel shows a Hoatzin in DarkestAfrica.

* ''Film/GeorgeOfTheJungle'' is supposed to take place in the heart of Africa but Shep is an Asian elephant (much easier to train), George's friend "Little Monkey" is a South American capuchin, and orangutans (from Indonesia) are occasionally spotted hanging around. And then there's the toucan, which is native to South America as well.

* Monkeys were released/escaped into the Everglades after the filming of the ''Tarzan'' movies there. While the movies were set in Africa, not Florida, they now depict accurately the fauna of the Everglades. When they were being filmed, they didn't...

* ''Webcomic/PokeyThePenguin'' is set in the Arctic Circle. As it also contains a hippopotamus-like Skeptopotamus, [[AcceptableTargets Italian invasion forces]] and {{Satan}} himself, it is possible that [[RuleOfFunny geographical realism wasn't the artist's highest priority]].

* A rabbit appears on the version 3 island of ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest''. The version three island is a jungle. ''Webcomic/PokeyThePenguin'' is set in the Arctic Circle. As it also contains a hippopotamus-like Skeptopotamus, [[AcceptableTargets Italian invasion forces]] and {{Satan}} himself, it is possible that [[RuleOfFunny geographical realism wasn't the artist's highest priority]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' has the quails (once again) and a moose. It is true that some animals ranged farther into the eastern parts of North America in pre-colonial times, but still. It leads one to think that the filmmakers have never even been to Virginia, given the spectacular ArtisticLicenseGeography of the landscape. [[note]] They actually ''did'' visit the Jamestown settlement; chalk it up to ArtisticLicense for the sake of SceneryPorn. [[/note]] Elk would have been more accurate if they were looking for something larger than a white-tail in Colonial times. There's also a large grizzly bear with cubs, even though there are only black bears in Virginia (today, at least).

* ''Series/WalkingWith'' has quite a few examples:

** "Giant of the Skies" has ''Utahraptor'' living in Europe while being absent during the part set in North America (self-explanatory). The tie-in book suggests the creators thought it was because similar dinosaurs were already found on both sides of the Atlantic as seen with the ''Iguanodon'' and ''Polacanthus''.

* In many episodes of ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs'', its sequels, and spin-offs, there's at least one species that is unknown from the region that that episode is set. Sometimes this is [[HandWave handwaved]], such as a waterhole during the dry season attracting animals from "far and wide" explaining the presence of the pterosaur ''Peteinosaurus'' (known only from Italy) in the region that would become Arizona. But other times, there's no explanation given, such as '''''Utah'''''''raptor'' being present in Europe.

* ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs'' and its sequels have quite a few examples:

** "Giant of the Skies" has ''Utahraptor'' living in Europe while being absent during the part set in North America (self-explanatory).

* ''WesternAnimation/TazMania'': Dingoes and koalas are only found on the Australian mainland, and kiwis are from New Zealand. Alligators don't live in Australia. Most of the rest of the animals are fine. Perhaps surprisingly, this includes the Bush Mice (mice and rats are found anywhere there are humans) and Buddy Boar (feral pigs have been an issue on the island).

* ''WesternAnimation/TazMania'': Dingoes and koalas are only found on the Australian mainland, and kiwis are from New Zealand. Aligators don't live in Australia. Most of the rest of the animals are fine. Perhaps surprisingly, this includes the Bush Mice (mice and rats are found anywhere there are humans) and Buddy Boar (feral pigs have been an issue on the island).

* ''WesternAnimation/PAWPatrol'': A literal example; in "Pups Save the Jungle Penguins", some Arctic penguins mistaken end up in the jungle, and the mission is to bring them home.

** One of the antagonists, Br'er Bear, is a grizzly bear who lives in the southern United States. Real grizzly bears don't live in the south, but in the northwest, like Alaska.
** The popular Disney ride, Ride/SplashMountain, which is based on ''Song of the South'' and also takes place in the south, not only features the particularly misplaced Br'er Bear. It also features a porcupine at one point of the ride, even though real porcupines live in the west and the northeast.

* In the original ''Videogame/SamuraiShodown'', monkeys could be seen in the background of Nakoruru's stage in Hokkaido, despite not being native to the island in real life. When this was pointed out to background designer Tomoki Fukui, he jokingly responded by saying that the monkeys must have swum across the Tsugaru Straits to support Nakoruru.

* In the original ''Videogame/SamuraiShodown'', monkeys could be seen in the background of Nakoruru's stage in Hokkaido, despite not being native to the island in real life. When this was pointed out to background designer Tomoki Fukui, he jokingly responded that the monkeys must have swum across the Tsugaru Straits to support Nakoruru.

* ''Dracula'' adaptations seem to have this problem bad; the [[FurryComic furry webcomic version]] features Jonathan Harker the coyote (originally meant to be a fox, but the guy doing the strip likes coyotes), and a Eastern European ship's crew contained a kangaroo. This is particularly silly since Quincy Morris was from Texas, so making ''him'' a coyote would've been appropriate.

* ''Manga/DrStone'', bizarrely, despite being so good at other aspects of accurately depicting the world, has American Alligators on the west coast of the USA--specifically in the Sacramento River--when their natural range is solely the south-east and Gulf coasts.

** The Bugs Bunny short WesternAnimation/FrigidHare has a penguin at the South Pole. Penguins are only found along coasts, not far inland. In a rare human example, there is an Eskimo hunting him. Not only do humans not live in Antarctica, he's on entirely the wrong end of the planet.

* ''WesternAnimation/BettyBoob'': "A Hunting We Will Go" has Bimbo and Koko encounter lions and leopards in a North American forest.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': An in-story example of this can be seen in "[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E15Trespass Trespass]]". The creatures the native Talz are riding throughout the episode are Narglatch, fan-tailed cat-like creatures that are native to Naboo. Not only the wrong climate zone (Naboo is mostly tropical), but the wrong '''planet'''. What's even worse is the fact that since the Talz are not advanced enough to have space travel, so the appearance of the Narglatch could not be explained by the Talz having brought them to the planet. Furthermore, the Talz themselves are from another planet. This tends to happen a lot not only on ''The Clone Wars'', but in the Star Wars universe in general. On the series, it's somewhat justified in that they have a limited number of CG models and have to re-use creatures on several planets. [[WhatCouldHaveBee Concept art]] for Season 5's Onderon arc featured a variant of the Narglatch that was adapted to Onderon's jungles, which was ultimately unused in the finished product.

** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E16CampfireTales Campfire Tales]]": An in-universe example. Applejack mentions that flyders are native to the Luna Bay area[[note]]A ways north and west of the main setting on the official map[[/note]], and don't usually travel so far from their home.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stranded}}'', one of many threats player will face in the island is lions.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': Fantasy exemple : Arachnatids are big, furry scorpions native to the frigid wastelands of Northrend, but they can also be found in Dustwallow Marsh, a hot swamp half the world away during Rexxar's campaign.

* The PC game ''Zoo Vet'' and its sequel ''Zoo Vet: Endangered Species'' suffered from this (Oribi antelope in a temperate forest, Komodo dragons & Chilean flamingos in a rainforest and ''bald eagles & tokay geckos in a desert'').

* Sniffles from ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' is a South American anteater cast with a bunch of North American woodland critters.

* Sid from ''Webcomic/SandraAndWoo'' is a Eurasian red squirrel living in a North American forest. His mother, while pregnant with him, fell into a tourist's suitcase in France.

* The Website/SCPFoundation’s [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2761 SCP-2761]], a genetically modified pipefish that was released in the Everglades and adds genetic material from other animals to its genotype, apparently has whooping crane DNA despite that species [[https://myfwc.com/media/14255/whoopingcrane-map.jpg?format=webp&quality=65 not being found in that part of Florida]].

* An old WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse short, ''Mickey Down Under'', features an ostrich deep in [[MisplacedVegetation the banana jungles of Australia]]. Obviously it was meant to be an emu, but the animators simply drew an African ostrich.

* The WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures music video for the Music/TheyMightBeGiants song "Istanbul, not Constantinople" messes up by having a Bactrian (two-humped) camel, when only dromedary (one-humped) camels live in the middle east.
* The monkey Nkima in Creator/{{Filmation}}'s ''Franchise/{{Tarzan}}'' cartoons looks New World.

* The original ''WesternAnimation/GeorgeOfTheJungle'' and [[WesternAnimation/GeorgeOfTheJungle2007 the remake]] are set in a fictional jungle that looks primarily African, but includes animals and vegetation you wouldn't see in the wilds of Africa. An especially odd use of this trope is in the newer animated series, where one of the characters seems to be a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine Thylacine]], an extinct marsupial from Australasia.

** One of Doofenshmirtz's [[HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood traumatic]] [[FreudianExcuse backstories]] involves him being [[RaisedByWolves raised by ocelots]], which are explicitly referred to in the movie as "South American wildcats". Yet [[{{Ruritania}} Druelselstein]] is presumably in continental Europe...
*** Since this show has involved both a time machine and a device which brought Danville and Drusselstein into trebuchet range, that could just be an as yet untold tale.

* In a first-season episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'', the Tennysons cross a Mexican jungle in which a chameleon (complete with 3 horns and goggle-eyes) is visible in the treetops. True chameleons aren't native to the New World, although feral populations (of different species than the one shown) do exist in California and Florida
* An in-story example of this can be seen in the ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' episode "Trespass". The creatures the native Talz are riding throughout the episode are Narglatch, fan-tailed cat-like creatures that are native to Naboo. Not only the wrong climate zone (Naboo is mostly tropical), but the wrong '''planet'''. What's even worse is the fact that since the Talz are not advanced enough to have space travel, so the appearance of the Narglatch could not be explained by the Talz having brought them to the planet. Furthermore, the Talz themselves are from another planet. This tends to happen a lot not only on ''The Clone Wars'', but in the Star Wars universe in general. On the series, it's somewhat justified in that they have a limited number of CG models and have to re-use creatures on several planets. [[WhatCouldHaveBee Concept art]] for Season 5's Onderon arc featured a variant of the Narglatch that was adapted to Onderon's jungles, which was ultimately unused in the finished product.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', despite taking place in a deliberate FantasyKitchenSink, gets special mention for having a giant squid ''in a lake'' in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E18TheShowStoppers The Show Stoppers]]". Further, given that the show takes place in a temperate, pastoral fields-and-woodlands type of setting, it's also more than a bit strange to see toucans and sea lions show up as regular components of Fluttershy's coterie of woodland critters.
* The ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'' episode "The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God", ostensibly set in Brazil, is jampacked with African wildlife.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' had Scrooge [=McDuck=], the nephews, Webby, and Ms. Beakley go to Antarctica to protect a colony of penguins from a giant carnivorous walrus that was trapped in an ice cube for thousands of years, but was accidentally freed by Webby's tuning fork, causing said ice cube to shatter. In real life, walruses are native to the Arctic, not Antarctica. A leopard seal would be more appropriate however, since they are giant seals that live near Antartica which feed on penguins.
* The ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' episode "Kiwi's Big Adventure" features a crocodile in the [[MisplacedVegetation tropical jungles]] of New Zealand.
* One ''WesternAnimation/TexAveryMGMCartoons'' short, "Slap Happy Lion", had a once ferocious lion that terrified all the other animals in the jungle with his roars, including a zebra, flamingo, a trio crocodiles, ostrich, snakes, a gorilla, and a kangaroo. Though one could argue a kangaroo might be ''more'' at home in a jungle than the lion is. Lions do not actually live in jungles.
* The ''ComicStrip/{{Popeye}}'' cartoon "Wild Elephinks" has Popeye encountering a ''moose'' in the African jungle. He's also seen fighting bears and squirrels in the climax.

** The episode "The Deep South" had an electric eel in the ocean. The same scene also showed a coelacanth (which is found in the Indian ocean), a leafy seadragon (from the Pacific), and a clownfish (Pacific again) despite the episode being set under the Atlantic.
** The episode "Fun On a Bun" had ''Megatherium'' (giant ground sloth), ''Macrauchenia'' (long-necked and trunked ungulate), and ''Doedicurus'' (giant club-tailed armadillo) in a LostWorld in Europe. All three were native to South America. At least the token saber-toothed cat appeared to be a ''Machairodus'' (it had a long tail) which did live in Europe, but that genus went extinct before the Pleistocene.
** Perhaps the most extreme example is ''penguins and orcas on Pluto''[[note]]In ''Futurama'', Pluto is portrayed as Antarctica as a planet.[[/note]] in "The Birdbot Ice-catraz". And just to be clear, neither were an extraterrestrial species, they're ordinary Earth penguins and orcas. Absolutely no explanation is given to it.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs1981'' cartoon show, skunks which are North American creatures can be found in the medieval Europe period Smurf Forest. The comic books are a little bit more accurate as they feature polecats instead of skunks.

* Strangely inverted in one episode of ''Literature/GeronimoStilton'': a shark suddenly attacks a surfing competition. Looking it up, Benjamin sees that it's a copper shark, and since those are usually found around Australia and New Zealand, deduces that it must have been introduced on purpose. While it ''is'' true that they're found there, [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Carcharhinus_brachyurus_rangemap.png copper sharks are found in many other coastal areas]], as widely dispersed as the West Coast of the United States and the Mediterranean.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBunch'', Maurice is a penguin who lives in a jungle. In the first movie's intro, it's revealed his egg was thrown into the sea by a walrus, and drifted to the jungle where he was then raised by a tiger. There are also koalas and beavers living in the jungle.

* The ‘’WesternAnimation/BettyBoop’’ cartoon “A Hunting We Will Go’’ has Bimbo and Koko encountering lions and leopards in a North American forest.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SeaPrincesses'', Elektra is the Princess of the Electric Eels: a creature that doesn't dwell in the sea.
* Topper the Penguin from ''WesternAnimation/SantaClausIsCominToTown'' is in search of the South Pole, but somehow found his way to the Arctic Circle. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Kris Kringle, who says to him, "That's on the opposite end of the Earth! You're about as lost as you could get!"
* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' parody of ''The Lion King'' featured tigers living in what appears to be Africa. Though [[{{Deconstruction}} knowing]] ''[[RuleOfFunny Animaniacs]]'', this may have been a reference to the misplaced wildlife in the film (or more likely just RuleOfFunny). As in ''The Lion King'', there are also leafcutter ants.
* A literal example; in the ''WesternAnimation/PAWPatrol'' episode "Pups Save the Jungle Penguins", some Arctic penguins mistaken end up in the jungle, and the mission is to bring them home.
* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama World Tour''

* ''Film/KingKong2005'' has large theropod dinosaurs that supposedly descended directly from UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex. The problem is that T. rex was a native of North America and would have never been anywhere near the pacific island this film takes place on, even taking continental drift into account. The same applies to every other single dinosaur, and most of the wildlife in general, on the island.
* ''Film/KingKongLives'': macaws on Borneo in the ending scene