History Main / MisplacedWildlife

[[quoteright:348:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/misplacedwildlife.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:348:[[PolarBearsAndPenguins What's wrong with this picture?]]]]

* The Transylvanian armadillos(!) in ''Film/{{Dracula}}'' (1931). There's also an opossum; Browning probably meant for them to stand in as giant rats, but...

* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' has [[ItWasHisSled polar]] [[AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame bears]] on a tropical island, alongside horses, chickens, and cows. Explained as being brought to the Island by [[spoiler:The DHARMA Initiative, [[AllThereInTheManual who were doing research on gene manipulation for adaption to different climates.]]]]

* ''Film/{{Anaconda}}s: Hunt for the Blood Orchid'' took place in Asia (specifically Borneo) -- even though most of the animals in the film are native to South America, particularly the title serpent itself (to say nothing of the tiger that appears briefly, since it's native to neither South America nor Borneo). This may be a case of failing geography rather than biology, as they might've belatedly decided to change the film's location. There's also the DEADLY golden silk orb-weaver seen several times during the film. Impressively, it's not too out of place (''Nephila'' is a very widespread genus, and there are several Asian species). On the other hand, it's not exactly DEADLY, as the many, ''many'' people who live with these things could easily tell you.

The bane of Naturalists, just as AnachronismStew is the bane of Historians. This is a Trope that can manifest several different ways.

* The SNES game ''Lester the Unlikely'' has a giant spider boss where hitting it results in an eagle sound (or rather, what the media thinks an eagle sounds like). Perhaps they couldn't find any other sound on the cartridge that was more appropriate. Seagulls make the same eagle sound.

* ''{{Transformers}}''
* ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' tries to avoid this by not being very particular as to what ''species'' of animal the cast transform into (and having the decency to explain Dinobot and Megatron's dinosaur alt-modes as being scanned from fossils), but it still has some odd placements, such as the gorilla that the computer scans for Optimus Primal being in the middle of what appears to be a desert. In a more literal sense, the fact that most of the animals on the cast are ''in the same shot'', centimetres apart from one another, is unusual. The wildlife placements are made far more odd when it is revealed that [[spoiler:the series takes place in North America, where the Autobot's Ark crashed]]. Even allowing for the prehistoric setting, many of the animals scanned in the first episode, as well as the proto-humans, are very out of place.
** ''Beast Wars II'', the Japan-only anime sequel, has at least one Tasmanian Devil on Gaea, which is Earth in the distant future. Plus, the surface of Gaea is a ''[[SingleBiomePlanet jungle]]''. Other examples abound, such as the question of how Big Convoy of ''Beast Wars Neo'' has a mammoth alt-form when he's apparently never even been to Earth/Gaea.

* The ''SherlockHolmes'' novel "The Speckled Band" not only featured a nonexistent snake called the "swamp adder" as the titular speckled band, but also mentioned cheetahs and baboons living in India. In real life, cheetahs would have become extinct in India around the time the book was published, and baboons are actually native to Africa.
** The novel was first published in 1892. The last solid evidence for cheetah in India was in 1947 and they are officially regarded as extirpated in India in the 1950s. They would have been rare in the 1890s but not yet extirpated. The baboon reference may also have been ''Macacus rhesus'' (the Rhesus Macaque) which has very occasionally been called the "Indian baboon" in English (even though it's not a baboon at all).

* ''Film/{{Airplane}}'' somehow had an actual turkey vulture, though. On the other hand, the elephant in Stryker's Africa flashback was actually an Asian elephant.

* The calls of the Kookaburra and the Indian Blue Peacock most often embellish the soundtracks of Hollywood jungle movies.
** The Indian Peacock is sometimes kept as a domestic animal in many parts of the world. This troper grew up in the redwood rainforest of California, and for years, the call of the peacock would be break the peace of the forest, from the farm further down the hill. Granted, Hollywood producers probably aren't thinking of this, but it does make alien peacock calls not 100% implausible.

* The ''DangerMouse'' episode "The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God", ostensibly set in Brazil, is jampacked with African wildlife.

** In general, KungFuPanda 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]].

** As of 1.7, the player can pull creatures such as pufferfish and clownfish out of small ponds.

* The stop-motion animation of ''FantasticMrFox'' comes very close to entering this trope, depending on your interpretation of the film. Although American animals such as the possum, beaver, and grey fox are present, this could just very well be an artistic choice on the director's part. After all, some of the animals that could have more easily been represented by their American counterparts, such as the badger, were instead obviously portrayed as the Eurasian variety -- fitting as the film is set in the English countryside. Some believe that because the animals are all portrayed as American, and the humans as English, the film could represent the American Revolution... in which case, is it acceptable for a few of the animals to be American species, if a theme of the film is all about said animals/culture fighting for their own identity? Mind = blown.

* ''[[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/551691 Drunk Science]]'' explains the origin of Polar Bears, along with the reason there aren't any penguins in the arctic.

** As of 1.7, the player can pull creatures such pufferfish and clownfish out of small ponds.

* Discussed in ''Film/LakePlacid''; the characters openly debate what the hell a giant saltwater crocodile is doing in a Maine lake. Mrs. Bickerman states that it just showed up one day and hasn't left since.

!Examples:

* Abu in [[DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney's]] ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}'', who looks like a New-World monkey in Arabia. There was mention in the animated series that Abu was imported as part of a traveling circus before he was adopted by Aladdin, and his tiny vest and hat was an artifact of this past, though this may have been an AuthorsSavingThrow. And Iago the parrot seems to be a very small version of a Scarlet Macaw. We had to wait for the [[RecycledTheSeries Television Series of the Film]] to get an explanation: during a jaunt to the Amazon, Iago mentions he left the area a while back.