History Main / MixAndMatchCritters

* Myth/ChineseMythology:

* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' with its chimerae and {{Transformation Ray}}s. This is taken to another level involuntarily with Vlad[[spoiler:/Vladia]] being created from DNA from several bats, owls, hawks and even a leopard in addition to human and an alien. Technically, Vlad should be able to change form at will, but the stress of doing so could very well kill him [[spoiler:which is why he was so happy when Ellen accidentally transformed him into a human girl]]. It's voluntary with Grace, who can mix and match aspects from [[PartialTransformation any]] and [[ShapeshifterMashup all]] of her continually growing number of forms. Jeremy, The Verres' pet "cat", has hedgehog spines -- this would probably get some weird looks, but pretty much everyone in town is used to Tedd's experiments by now. Also, [[http://www.egscomics.com/sketchbook/?date=2004-03-07 this]] critter in a filler sketch.

** Variation occurs in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' and [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 its sequel]], where the Chao develop physical traits similar to the small animals they play with (bunny ears, peacock crest, tiger arms...). Neutral and Dark "Run Type" Chao resemble Sonic and Shadow respectively, with blue or black striped head spines. Also, it's possible to make one look like ''Chaos''.

* The Questing Beast that Myth/KingArthur encountered had the head of a snake, the body of a leopard, the legs of a deer, and the tail of a lion. If you think about it, it sounds a lot like a giraffe, which some scholars have suggested as what the creature is based on.

* TheJerseyDevil -- horse/dragon mix

* OurGryphonsAreDifferent -- lion/bird mix

* BasiliskAndCockatrice -- bird/snake mix.

* TheMothman -- human/moth or human/bird mix

* ''Literature/FightingFantasy'': ''Citadel of Chaos'' features two monsters: one with a wolf's head and an ape's body, the other precisely the reverse.

* Any discussion with Mix and Match critters must start with the [[PuzzlingPlatypus platypus]], easily one of the weirdest creatures that ever lived. An animal originally considered so bizarre that it was dismissed as a hoax. It seems fairly benign today, but imagine someone in 1798 receiving pelts of a creature that looked like [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Platypus-sketch.jpg equal parts duck, beaver and otter]] that also laid eggs. And that was before the male was discovered to be ''venomous''.
** The platypus injects its venom through the spurs on its ''feet''. While not stolen from another animal, it is still a freaky thing to do.
** The female, on the other hand, ''sweats milk''. And both of them can sense electric fields...
** And the best part: this semi-aquatic duck-billed web-footed egg-laying poison-spurred milk-sweating electricity-sensing furred creature is a mammal.
** One of the reasons for the skepticism of scientists was the abundance of fake taxidermied fantastic beasts. Collectors of stuffed deer heads and bearskin rugs looking for something more exotic and you can't get them a giraffe or lion? No problem, just take some bits and pieces from some different animals and sew them together. No one will know the difference. That's why scientists must have inspected every inch of the first few platypus specimens for stitching.
** And as if platypuses weren't already bizarre enough on the ''outside'', they also have a reproductive system like a bird with only one functional ovary, have no stomach (the esophagus connects directly to the intestine), secrete their own antibiotics, have ten sex chromosomes instead of two, and combine genes from reptiles, mammals and birds despite them having evolved separately.
** For a cherry on top of all this weirdness, it was discovered in 2020 that platypuses ''glow bright green in the dark under UV light.'' Amusingly, its biofluorescent glow is [[HilariousInHindsight the same color]] as [[WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb Perry the Platypus.]]
* And if you thought the platypus was bizarre, wait 'till you meet its close cousin, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna echidna.]] It has all of the platypus' peculiar features, also laying eggs, sweating milk, having electro-receptors on its snout, and bearing ankle spurs, but mixed with an anteater's narrow mouth and long tongue, the sharp quills of a hedgehog, backwards-facing hind feet, a belly pouch in the females where she carries her unhatched egg, ankle spurs like the platypus but instead of secreting venom houses a smelly musk gland, and in the male, a ''[[{{Squick}} four-headed penis.]]'' Sadly, despite their weirdness, they aren't as well-known as their aquatic cousins (save perhaps [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog Knuckles the Echidna]].
* Well, maybe the platypus and echidna were not quite the weirdest ''ever'' -- the prehistoric [[http://paleobiology.si.edu/burgess/hallucigenia.html Hallucigenia]] was named because you'd have to be high to even imagine something like it. It looks like somebody combined a worm, an octopus, a hedgehog, and some other things that only a Lovecraft could love.
** It's quite telling how bizarre this creature was when for several decades, scientists couldn't even figure out its top from its bottom and its front from its back! When it was first reconstructed, it was depicted as walking on several spiny stilts while having waving tentacles on its back. However, upon examination of other related species, they realized their reconstruction was ''upside down:'' the "stilts" were actually defensive dorsal spines, and the "back tentacles" were fleshy legs!
** Even after this, it was unclear which end was the head: it was commonly assumed that a dark blot on one end was the creature's head, until 2014, when a closer examination revealed a pair of eyes on the ''opposite end''. The dark blotch mistaken for ''Hallucigenia's'' front? It was actually [[{{Squick}} poop and body fluids that squirted out its guts]] during fossilization...
* In 2020, paleontologists unearthed the most complete ''Spinosaurus'' fossil yet...and surprisingly, it had a broad flat finned tail that confirmed theories since 2014 that ''Spinosaurus'' was aquatic. Amusingly, this has caused the Spino to be described as a bizarre fusion of a crocodile, a goose, a ''Dimetrodon'' and an eel.

* Ancient Greek texts described the "cameleopard", a creature with the body of a camel and the markings of a leopard. What they were actually describing was the long-necked, "spotted" giraffe.
* Furthermore, the Greeks and Romans believed the spotted leopard itself was born from a mating of a lion (''leo'') and a cheetah (''gattus pardus'' -- "spotted cat"). Yeah, as wise as the Classical civilizations were, they knew squat about zoology[[note]]or, maybe, more than we thought... turns out that, for cats, the notion that a species is a reproductively isolated population is laughably quaint; if two species in the cat family are of compatible size, it's reasonably likely that they ''can'' interbreed, even if they don't normally do so[[/note]].
** Speaking of the Greeks, in the unknown land, anything goes. People with dogs' heads, people walking on their hands... Both are believed to be distorted reports of baboons.
** Ostriches were traditionally described as having camels' legs by the Greeks and Romans (and the medieval peoples who inherited their knowledge of animals). Compare [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190205074023/https://53744bf91d44b81762e0-fbbc959d4e21c00b07dbe9c75f9c0b63.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/media/B1/B1AECE73-5C6F-43E3-903D-40710329D437/Presentation.Large/Feet-of-ostrich-ssp-australis.jpg an ostrich's foot]] with a [[http://stillunfold.com/public/upload/post_thumb/6_Amazing_Things_We_Should_Learn_From_Camel_Feet.jpg a camel's foot]], and you'll see where they were coming from. Their Greek name, in particular, comes from the Ancient Greek words for "sparrow" and "camel".
*** Like the ostrich, a Greek synonym for "llama" comes from the words "sheep" and "camel", referring to its camel-like body and its sheep-like wool.
* [[https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSzlf4HFUA_yLm882oIi0i6paVfouCRv6hA9Ipz7bSLMjgOkZlc The Brown Hyena]] is best decsribed as having a bear's face, a bat's ears, a zebra's legs, a dog's paws and a fuzzy body almost like a bird's.

* ''Odobenocetops'' was an extinct tusked species of whale that looked like some freakish fusion of a narwhal and a walrus (its name literally means "walrus-faced whale").
* Ligers ([[Film/NapoleonDynamite bred for their skills in magic, of course]]) and tigons. [[Film/TheWizardOfOz (And bears, oh my!)]] Hoo-boy, let's not even start on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felid_hybrid hybrid cats]].
** But let's start on the ligers' less fictitious claims to awesomeness: mane (the beard of the animal kingdom), golden striped color scheme, being [[GentleGiant twice the size of a tiger, and gentle demeanor]].
** On a much smaller scale, we have [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_cat Savannah]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_cat Bengal cat]]s, two domestic breeds with hybrid ancestry; Savannahs are a cross between a domestic cat and a serval, and Bengals are domestics crossed with the Asian leopard cat.
* For a very long time, the theropod dinosaur ''Deinocheirus'' was shrouded in mystery. All that was known from it were a pair of giant clawed arms each about eight feet long (hence its name, meaning "terrible hand"), and not much else. That is, until over 50 years after its discovery that a complete skeleton was found, and turns out, the arms may have been the ''least'' distinctive feature of the long-lost dino: [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Deinocheirus_NT.jpg it had a head like a horse, a bill like a goose, a hump like a camel, was covered in feathers, was about the size of a T. Rex and apparently ate fish.]] And perhaps the strangest thing of all was that it was a particularly aberrant member of the ornithomimosaur family, which mostly consisted of the small "ostrich dinosaurs" such as ''Struthiomimus''.
* Kirk Cameron's fictitious "Crocoduck", which he believes [[StrawmanPolitical scientists believe]] would be the [[ArtisticLicenseBiology ultimate proof of evolution]].
** Hmm.... snout filled with nasty teeth and a long, powerful tail, but at the same time bipedal and feathers? Wait, we have something like that. It's called a ''dinosaur'' (more specifically, a theropod, and if you want to get really specific, only maniraptoran theropods have vaned feathers).
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatosuchus Anatosuchus]], a small extinct crocodile with an unusually broad snout whose name literally means "duck crocodile" and has since, rather cheekily, been nicknamed the "Crocoduck".
** Also cheekily, the gag Golden Crocoduck Award is now granted to whichever creationist whackjob is caught on film making the year's stupidest argument against evolution.
** ''Spinosaurus'' is nowadays jokingly referred to as a "Crocoduck", since we now know it had very short hindlegs and webbed feet.

* Actual experiments conducted recently. Implanting a human-shaped ear on a mouse? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacanti_mouse Sure.]] Firefly-tobacco hybrid -- a leaf that glows in the dark? [[http://www.sci-news.com/biology/glowing-tobacco-plants-08368.html Why not?]] With current technology we could go much further were it not for those pesky ethical considerations.
* The Charles R. Knight reconstruction of the dinosaur ''Agathaumas'' (now suspected to be the misidentified remains of another dinosaur) mashed the spiked frill of ''Styracosaurus'' with the three horns of ''Triceratops'', despite the only fossil evidence being of the dinosaur's rear end.
** On a similar note, the popular depiction of pterosaurs as some sort of [[http://pterosaur.net/myths.php crazy hybrid]] between ''Pteranodon'' and ''Rhamphorhynchus''. Interestingly, toothed pterosaurs with ''Pteranodon''-like crests did exist in real life. One such genus was named ''Ludodactylus'' or "Toy Finger" as a reference to many depictions of [[ToothyBird toothy pteranodonts]].
* According to a theory by one philosopher of ancient Greece, all animal parts appeared independently and were combined in different possible ways to form whole creatures, but natural selection pruned out all the silly combinations.
** Well, ''most'' of the silly combinations.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/funny-5588-hybrid-animals/ Cracked comes to the rescue again]] with various bizarre and scary hybrids.
** [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20144_9-animals-that-are-just-lazy-combinations-other-animals.html They did it again]]. No flying lemurs, but there is a gliding one!
** So... [[http://www.cracked.com/article_21454_6-animals-that-look-like-drunken-combinations-other-ones.html they did another list again.]]
* The Okapi; the only remaining giraffe that doesn't look like the tall blondes one thinks of when one hears the word; the other four extant species of giraffid are members of the genus ''Giraffa'', while the okapi is part of a separate genus (''Okapia''). It has the body of a horse, the legs of a zebra, and the head of a giraffe complete with hornlike protrusions known as ossicones… Like the above-mentioned platypus, early okapi carcasses where initially written off as fakes.
** Speaking of zebras, let's talk about equids. Most people are familiar with what you get when a male donkey and female horse mate, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule a mule]] (while the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey is known as a hinny). But what happens when you cross-breed a Zebra with a horse or a donkey? You get a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebroid Zorse]] or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebroid Zedonk]] respectively.
** Find any kid that sees a picture of a wildebeest and doesn't say "horned horse".
* Clarus the Dogcow, mascot of the UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh. "Moof!"
* North American folklore has the jackalope, a jackrabbit with horns.
* The Blind Men and Elephant story from India, where a group of blind men mistook each part of an elephant they touched as belonging to separate things (body is a wall, tusks are a spear, trunk is a snake, ear is a fan, tail is a rope).
* One well-known optical illusion depicts a creature that alternately resembles a duck or a rabbit, depending on whether you think of the long, paired structures on its head as a bill or as ears.
* Looking closer at a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosasaur Mosasaur]], you'd think someone finally managed to take the badass qualities of a shark and a crocodile and combine into one badass dominant marine predator of the Cretacious period. Most unusually, however, was that it was neither a dinosaur or a crocodile: it's a ''close relative of the modern Komodo Dragon.''
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalicothere Chalicotheres]] looked like a pumped up-cross between a horse and a gorilla (or amusingly, a literal ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong''), possessing a horse-like head with a slouched posture and an ape-like knuckle-walking gait. Strangely, its closest relatives are the tapir and rhino.
* The extinct glyptodont species, [[http://iririv.deviantart.com/art/Doedicurus-clavicaudatus-133480077 Doedicurus clavicaudatus]] look like if someone took an ankylosaurus and an armadillo (already two awesome animals by themselves) and combined them into an even more awesome one.
** At the same time, there was a turtle knock-off of both in Australia: ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiolania Meiolania]]''.
* ''Macrauchenia'' is a Cenozoic herbivorous mammal that looked like a bizarre mashup of a camel, a giraffe, and an elephant.
* This trope is not SpeculativeFiction at all, for horticulture: many plants for sale in nurseries and garden supply stores are actually a product of grafting, as when a beautiful-but-frail rosebush is fused to a hardy-but-unattractive rootstock.

* There is now [[https://twitter.com/AnimalMashups a Twitter account]] which tweets solely hypothetial pictures of hybrid creatures.
* Xenografting is the still-experimental medical technique of transplanting organs or tissues between species. Currently it's used in oncology research, transplanting bits of human tumors into laboratory mice so that various cures can be tried out on them.
* The sub-{{Website/Reddit}} [[http://www.reddit.com/r/HybridAnimals/ HybridAnimals.]]
* ''[[https://pterosaur.net/gallery_rey_caulkicephalus.php Caulicephalus]]'' was a pterosaur found in South America that resembled an ''[[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Ornithocheirus_BW.jpg Ornithocheirus]]'' with a ''Pteranodon''-like crest.
* In genetics, the word "chimera" means an animal which contains genetically distinct cells (rather than all cells having the same DNA). This is actually more common than you might guess, since without genetic testing it's (usually) not noticeable. One case where it ''is'' noticeable is male tortoiseshell cats: the tortoiseshell pattern is sex-linked (the gene controlling what type of melanin is produced is on the X chromosome, and in females one of the genes is turned off randomly in each cell early in development, so a cat with one Orange gene and one not-Orange (black) gene will have a mix of orange and black hair). In male cats, there's only one X chromosome, so normally either every cell has the gene for orange pigment or the gene for black pigment (patterns are produced by other genes, which can reduce or turn off the production of pigmentation in some cells). However, some male cats are chimerae with some Orange cells and some not-Orange (black) cells, so they can have both orange and black fur in different places depending on which particular cells happen to be there. (There are also other ways this can happen; the genetics of fur color in cats is complicated.)
** A related genetic term is mosaicism, which is also a case of there being multiple genotypes within a single organism. The end result is similar, with the main distinction being the cause (chimerae happen when multiple fertilized eggs combine; in a mosaic all the cells are from a single fertilized egg, with something having gone "wrong" at some point during cell replication
** This can actually happen to humans too. In one famous case, a women named Lydia Fairchild's children were almost taken away because a DNA test proved they weren't her children. She gave birth to another baby in front of a witness. When tested, the baby turned out not to be her child either. The mystery was eventually solved when a DNA test proved she in effect had her twin sister's ovaries. She got to keep her children.

* Flying Fox bats look almost like bats with dog heads.
* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFjoqyVRmOU Spider-Tailed Viper]] is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
* One weird medieval culinary practice, used to perplex and entertain guests at important banquets, was the production of "cockentrices": mix-and-match entrees in which half a chicken or duck were sewn to half a suckling pig, lamb, or young goat. Extreme chefs might add odd delicacies such as bear paws or turtle feet, then decorate them with chain mail and miniature helmets to make them look like a knight in armor.
* The sheepshead fish has what appears to be human teeth.

* The red panda could be described as 1/4 giant panda, 1/4 raccoon, 1/4 fox, and 1/4 cat.
* The maned wolf is an animal found in South America that looks like a dog with the coloration of a fox and the legs of a deer, as they are disproportionately long for a canine species. The sound it makes it is called a roar-bark because it sounds like a cross between a roar and a bark. Their favorite food is a fruit similar to a tomato. And their urine smells like cannabis. So yeah, they are very strange.
* Sightings of a creature in Africa that has the body of a large feline but with large stripes as markings sparked a legend that it's the offspring of a leopard and a hyena. It's now known to be 100% cheetah with a particularly rare fur coat pattern, dubbed the king cheetah.
* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus Australopithecus]] is often described as an ape's head upon a human body. Aside from the size, telling apart their bones and human ones isn't easy even for specialists. Hardly surprising; resizing a few bones is much easier than the brain work, so of course that part was done quckly.
* ''Anomalocaris'', an early marine arthropod, was known for decades only from fragmentary fossils. Its mouth was mistaken for a whole jellyfish, and the arms directly above the mouth were thought to be headless shrimp.
* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus basilosarus]] is thought to have looked like a combination of whale and [[SeaSerpents sea serpent.]] It also [[NonIndicativeName wasn't a dinosaur, or even a reptile, but a cetacean.]]

** In ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' there are some [[SeaMonster sea monsters]]. There is an Opee Sea Killer who is a mix of a crustacean and a piranha with a chameleon-like tongue. There is also a Colo Claw Fish with a head of a crocodile, and a body of an eel with legs of the crab.

* If BearsAreBadNews and EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks, then it's hard to imagine just [[UpToEleven how appalling]] things are with [[http://theygotmixedup.blogspot.com/ Sea Bear and Grizzly Shark]]!

* Myth/HinduMythology brings us the Makara, a sea creature with the body of a crocodile, the trunk of an elephant, the paws of a lion, and the tail of a fish with a peacock's feathers at the end of it. Some versions also add a boar's tusks, a monkey's eyes, or a stag's antlers. [[UpToEleven And if that wasn't enough]], it's ''also'' often depicted with a serpent emerging from its mouth.

* ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'''s entire concept is all about taking random generation [[UpToEleven Up To Eleven]], up to the animals inhabiting the planets, which can have a variety of weird body types grafted together.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'': Chowder and Panini are crosss between a cat, bear, and rabbit. However, the original idea for the Chowder design was to look like some sort of squeeze toy.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Twilight's form in our dimension is a winged lion. The design team refers to this as a "gryphon", although that's not quite accurate, as a gryphon has an eagle's head.

* The Tikbalang from Philippine mythology has the body of a man, but with the head and feet of a horse. Its legs are so long that when it sits down, its knees are above its head. Some legends also give it a mane of spikes. They are known for messing with travelers by shapeshifting into someone's relative, but if you find the right one, you can control it and ride it through the sky.

* ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy5'' has the Camel Mammoth, a mammoth with yellow-tan fur and a camel's humps. Anna cracks up at the sight of it:
--> "Haha, is that some kind of desert mammoth? I've never seen such a derpy animal before."

** In ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'', Lagoon Boy shows up with a new pet that looks like a giant sharp-toothed fish with tentacles and a crustacean like armor on its back that merges into a lobster tail, and evidently the females of the species are ''much'' larger and less friendly than the males.

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]

* Some scientists believe that [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] are itself a mix-and-match creature that was deeply ingrained into our psychology through evolution, which would explain why so many different cultures feature some kind of dragon. The theory states that the dragon is a combination of mankind's animal enemies. The body comes from dangerous snakes and other reptiles. The maw comes from big cats. The talons come from birds of prey. The wings come from bats, etc.
** As for fire, animals instinctively fear fire. Humans have largely conquered that fear by conquering fire, but it still crept into the subconscious.

* The [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Egyptian]] gods are often depicted as humans with animal heads.
** Parodied in Literature/{{Discworld}}, "Gods are human-shaped. Even Offler the crocodile god is only crocodile ''headed''. Ask humans to imagine an animal god and they'll come up with someone in a really bad mask."

** Hippogriffs have appeared in ''ComicStrip/FlashGordon'', ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' and, of course, ''Literature/HarryPotter''.
** One of Dream's three guards in ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' is described as a hippogriff but is drawn as a Pegasus-type winged horse.

* The Shedu / Lamassu of ancient Sumeria were heavenly protective deities with the head of a man or woman, wings, and the body of bull or lion and were seen as servants of higher gods and protectors of households. Historians believe they later had a large influence on the creation of the lore about the sphinx, Arabian Djinn, Judeo-Christian Angels (particularly the Cherubs), and the worldwide practice of placing gargoyles on buildings. Also, one of Gilgamesh's greatest feats was defeating Isthar's pet Shedu.

* Myth/HinduMythology brings us the Makara, a sea creature with the body of a crocodile, the trunk of an elephant, the paws of a lion, and the tail of a fish with a peacock's feathers at the end of it. Some versions also add a boar's tusks, a monkey's eyes, or a stag's antlers. [[UpToEleven And if that wasn't enough]], it's ''also'' often depicted with a serpent emerging from its mouth. And yes, that ''is'' where [[Webcomic/{{Homestuck}} they got the name from]].

** [[TabletopGame/{{Exalted}} Is Ma-ha-Suchi involved?]]
** Sarah Ellerton's followup project, ''Webcomic/ThePhoenixRequiem'', also has Dakor. This time, she left out the humanoid and just made wolves with goat horns.

* ''Webcomic/DragonMango'': One of the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters many]] main characters summoned [[http://dragon-mango.com/comic/chapter02/dm02-29.htm a hippogryff -- half-hippopotamus, half-griffin.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!", Peter once took the lyric "Two turtledoves" literally and gave Lois a pair of genetically engineered doves with turtle shells for Christmas. After letting them loose, they flew around the living room erratically and the Griffins decided to spend that Christmas outside.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Epic}}'': The Boggan {{Mooks}} look like a cross between frogs and sharks. Mandrake and his son, however, look more cat- and human-like.

* ''ComicBook/MyLittlePonyGenerations'': Shriek-yowls resemble owls with fox tails.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTVSpecials'':

*** The sphinx in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E17DaringDone Daring Done?]]" is a massive lion-like creature with feathered wings and a pony's head.
*** In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E9NonCompeteClause Non-Compete Clause]]", the main characters are menaced by a school of biteacudas, piranha-like fish with bat wings.
*** This actively {{Exploited}} in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E26SchoolRazePart2 School Raze]]", where [[spoiler:the main characters hatch a plan to escape Tartarus after having their magic drained by temporarily borrowing the magic inherent in the natures of the chimeric beasts imprisoned there; until their magic is returned, this causes the volunteer monsters to temporarily split into their component animals -- a manticore into a lion and a scorpion, a chimera into a snake, a goat and saber-toothed cat, a bugbear into a wasp and a panda, and a cockatrice into a cobra and a chicken]].

** Cosmos, the spirit of malice, also fits this trope. She has a dragon-like head and wings, a cobra's hood, bird talons for arms, a feline body, and a scorpion tail. [[spoiler:Once she fuses with the Princesses, Big Mac, and Zecora, a number of their traits — such Zecora's stripes, Big Mac's legs, Luna's wings, Celestia's tail and Cadance and Twilight's manes — are slapped onto her as well.]]

* In a deliberate subversion, 16th-century Italian author Ludovico Ariosto created the ''hippogriff'' -- a beast that is part griffin and part horse -- for his epic ''Literature/OrlandoFurioso'' as a joke on a line from the Roman poet Virgil which used "when griffins are mated with horses" as a synonym for "impossible" or "never". Although it never was truly "mythological" it is considered so today.

** Ostriches were traditionally described as having camels' legs by the Greeks and Romans (and the medieval peoples who inherited their knowledge of animals). Compare [[https://53744bf91d44b81762e0-fbbc959d4e21c00b07dbe9c75f9c0b63.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/media/B1/B1AECE73-5C6F-43E3-903D-40710329D437/Presentation.Large/Feet-of-ostrich-ssp-australis.jpg an ostrich's foot]] with a [[http://stillunfold.com/public/upload/post_thumb/6_Amazing_Things_We_Should_Learn_From_Camel_Feet.jpg a camel's foot]], and you'll see where they were coming from. Their Greek name, in particular, comes from the Ancient Greek words for "sparrow" and "camel".

** But let's start on the ligers' less fictious claims to awesomeness: mane (the beard of the animal kingdom), golden striped color scheme, being [[GentleGiant twice the size of a tiger, and gentle demeanor]].

*** Behemoth, a brown-furred mammalian beast resembling a giant ground sloth, but with bony protrubances on its back, a pair of mammoth-like tusks, and a knuckle-walking stance like a gorilla.