| 1 | %% |
| 2 | %%The examples on this page have been sorted alphabetically. Please help keep this page tidy by adding new ones in order. Thank you! |
| 3 | %% |
| 4 | |
| 5 | [[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b9351de2_30e9_4fe5_b974_04da0747cba9.png]] |
| 6 | [[caption-width-right:300:Left: Dim, a character from ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'' (1998).\ |
| 7 | Right: ''Megaceras briansaltini'', a rhinoceros beetle discovered in 2006.]] |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ->''"It just goes to show how diverse ancient mammals are, that we can just imagine some bizarre critter and later find something just like it." '' |
| 10 | -->--'''Guillermo Rougier''', on the similarity of ''Cronopio dentiacutus'' to Scrat from ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'' |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Accidentally Correct Zoology happens when a fictional species is made up for a work, or a fictional animal quality or ability is, only for a real example resembling it to be discovered later on. The animal or other organism should first appear in a work of fiction, without the author believing that it actually exists, to count. What was once thought to be ArtisticLicenseBiology is later confirmed by science to be real. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | Compare RealAfterAll, an in-universe counterpart where a creature that is considered a myth or superstition is revealed to really exist in the universe of the work. Also compare RightForTheWrongReasons, where someone coincidentally arrives to the right conclusion despite being mistaken about the facts, and RealityIsUnrealistic, where someone might believe something doesn't exist or is incorrect despite actually being real. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | A subtrope of AccidentallyCorrectWriting. Not a Subtrope of {{Defictionalization}} unless the real-life species or breed is a result of artificial selection or genetic engineering that is inspired by fiction. Contrast ScienceMarchesOn, where new discoveries prove assumptions or even previously admitted certainties wrong. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | ---- |
| 19 | !!Examples: |
| 20 | |
| 21 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 22 | |
| 23 | [[folder:Art]] |
| 24 | * The invalid dinosaur genus ''Agathaumas'' was named in 1872 for some rather unremarkable fossils that probably belonged to a ''Triceratops''. Even though nobody knew what the whole skeleton looked like, artist Creator/CharlesRKnight illustrated it as a sort of imaginary cross between a ''Triceratops'' and a ''Styracosaurus'', with three horns and a spiky frill (a combination which has since gone on to appear frequently in fiction). At the time, no dinosaur with this combination of features was actually known. In 2015, a dinosaur named ''Regaliceratops'' was discovered that looked almost exactly like the one in Knight's painting -- and it came from the same time as the ''Agathaumas'' fossils too. |
| 25 | [[/folder]] |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 28 | * ''ComicBook/{{Flesh}}'' featured "furry tyrannosaurs". Decades before the discoveries of actual feathered tyrannosaurs: ''Dilong'' in 2004 and ''Yutyrannus'' in 2012. |
| 29 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In ''ComicBook/Superboy1949'' #90 (July, 1961), a picture shows an ''Allosaurus'''s body held horizontally, with its tail balancing out its head, even though theropods's traditional portrayals had them to stand up straight like a kangaroo. Several years later, paleontologists realized that the "tripod" pose was wrong, and theropods held their bodies horizontally. |
| 30 | [[/folder]] |
| 31 | |
| 32 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 33 | * ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': One Sunday strip from 1990 features the "''Calvinosaurus''", a monstrous carnosaur which is bigger than ''UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex'' and eats sauropods. 1995 saw the discovery of a sauropod-hunting carnosaur that gained fame for usurping ''T. rex'' in size, and its name is ''Giganotosaurus''. Although it should be noted ''Giganotosaurus'' is roughly the same height and mass as ''T. rex'', whereas Calvinosaurus is ridiculously enormous to the point of devouring the largest sauropods in a single bite. Also, ''Giganotosaurus'' lived in the Cretaceous, not in the Jurassic like ''Calvinosaurus''. |
| 34 | [[/folder]] |
| 35 | |
| 36 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 37 | * ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'': Dim is a member of a fictional species of rhinoceros beetle created for the movie. Eight years after the movie's release, a real species of rhinoceros beetle that resembled Dim, called ''Megaceras briansaltini'', was discovered. This trope was coined "the Dim Effect" by its discoverer Brett C. Ratcliffe because of this. |
| 38 | * ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'': Although the blue whale [[spoiler:that swallows Marlin and Dory]] in the film being portrayed as having a uvula (the grape-like ball that hangs in the back of your throat) was initially seen as inaccurate, [[https://news.ubc.ca/2022/01/20/heres-why-whales-dont-drown-when-they-gulp-down-food-underwater/ the discovery in 2022 of a similar "oral plug" in many baleen whales that closes their airways off when lunging for food, much like a human uvula]], rendered the addition of the organ somewhat accurate after all. |
| 39 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'', the protagonists are attacked by a snake sporting four small, lizard-like legs. When the movie was developed, although there was a lot of indirect evidence that snakes evolved from four-legged ancestors, no such snake was known in the fossil record. Only a few days after the release of the movie's trailer in 2015, ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapodophis Tetrapodophis]]'' was discovered. |
| 40 | * ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'': |
| 41 | ** The franchise, starting in 2002, has a "sabre-toothed squirrel" named Scrat. ''Cronopio dentiacutus'' is a small (8-9 inches long) squirrel-like mammal with a long snout and sharp canines, discovered in 2011. However, it lived during the Cretaceous Period, not the ice age, wasn't a rodent, and probably didn't eat acorns. The [[WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs third movie]] introduces Scrat's DistaffCounterpart, Scratte, who lives in a LostWorld with Mesozoic dinosaurs, which is a more accurate environment for ''Cronopio''. |
| 42 | ** The ''Gastornis'' from the sequels don't appear to invoke the same CarnivoreConfusion among herbivores as other carnivores in the series do. Skip ahead several years and it's discovered that ''Gastornis'' was actually a herbivore. Downplayed in that the herbivorous interpretation still ''existed'' at the time, it just wouldn't become the consensus until a few years later. |
| 43 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'': |
| 44 | ** In the first movie, a group of aggressive ''Pachycephalosaurus'' attack Cera. Though they might be territorial, their slobbering expressions indicate they are trying to eat her, even though at the time the species was believed to be strictly herbivorous (which is reflected in the sequels). However, [[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/news-vegetarian-dinosaur-ate-meat-pachycephalosaurus-paleontology a 2018 finding]] showed that ''Pachycephalosaurus'' had sharp front teeth, indicating a potentially omnivorous diet that if true may have included baby dinosaurs. |
| 45 | ** Also in the first movie, the gang managing to find food becomes thwarted by a herd of ''Diplodocus'' which weirdly have mouths shaped like beaks. With the discovery of well-preserved sauropod skulls in recent years, it would seem sauropods had hard mouths similar to beaks. |
| 46 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'': Monstro the whale resembles a gigantic sperm whale with huge teeth on both upper and lower jaws, something real life sperm whales lack (having only thin teeth on their lower jaw). In 2008, a prehistoric sperm whale called ''Livyatan'' was discovered with gigantic tearing teeth on both jaws. |
| 47 | * ''WesternAnimation/SharkTale'' portrays the Great White Sharks as being part of an extended mafia family when, for the longest time, they were believed to be solitary sea creatures. However, recent studies has shown that while Great Whites mainly lives solo, they do occasionally meet up with other Great Whites near abundant sources of food, with their social behaviors being much deeper and more complex than people give them credit for, as they seem to genuinely enjoy the company of others of their kind every once in a while. |
| 48 | * In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}}'' and the [[RecycledTheSeries spin-off series]] ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTarzan'', gorillas are shown catching termites with sticks. [[DownplayedTrope Not exactly a fictional species but a behaviour not associated with them]] and given a pass because Tarzan's family are, for all intents and purposes, more similar to humans than real-life simians. (As a matter of fact, back in 1999, when the movie was made, it was believed that only chimpanzees do this). However, in 2014, [[http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141218-wild-gorilla-has-eureka-moment similar behavior was also observed in mountain gorillas]]. A reminder that we give less credit to gorillas than the one they deserve. |
| 49 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'': |
| 50 | ** The ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' was going to have two fingers as in reality, but Creator/WaltDisney himself thought three fingers looked better and changed it. The movie has the ''Tyrannosaurus'' fight a ''Stegosaurus'', which actually lived roughly [[AnachronismStew 80 million years]] before ''Tyrannosaurus''... and along the three-fingered carnosaur ''Allosaurus'' (which interestingly was planned to appear in the movie but got cut). |
| 51 | ** Despite being in a time when dinosaurs were thought to be lumbering dimwits, the ones in "The Rite of Spring" display such behaviors as parental care and the bipeds (including the ''Tyrannosaurus'') running with their tails off of the ground for counterbalance. These behaviors would be vindicated by the Dinosaur Renaissance occurring later in the 1970s. |
| 52 | * In ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge'', when Hammy and RJ are stealing cookies from The Girl Scouts, Hammy threatens a reflection of himself on a car bumper. In real life, squirrels are territorial animals and would growl and attack another squirrel and most don't even recognize their own reflections so his reaction to his own reflection is pretty accurate. |
| 53 | [[/folder]] |
| 54 | |
| 55 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 56 | * Many fish have pharyngeal jaws, an extra set of mandibles at the entrance to the throat, but for the most part they are small and easy to miss, and the monster from ''Film/{{Alien}}'' was the TropeCodifier for NestedMouths. However, years after the film came out, it was discovered that moray eels' pharyngeal jaws are almost as mobile as the xenomorph's. |
| 57 | * ''Film/JurassicPark1993'': The velociraptors are nothing like and much larger than real-life ''Velociraptor'', which was about the size of turkey, and are based on ''Deinonychus'' instead -- but are, in fact, far too large to be ''Deinonychus'' either, as even the largest specimens didn't quite reach a meter of height at the shoulder. However, after filming of the first movie had started, an even larger species than the movie raptors called ''Utahraptor'' was discovered. In the years since then, another dromaeosaur has been found matching ''Jurassic Park'''s raptors for size, ''and'' it lived in roughly the same time and place as the raptor Grant was digging up. It's called ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakotaraptor Dakotaraptor]]''. Both are still not complete matches, since ''Utahraptor'' and ''Dakotaraptor'' had feathers (the arm bones of ''Dakotaraptor'' even have quill knobs to prove it) unlike the raptors in the book and movie (also, a number of palaeontologists are skeptical about the validity of ''Dakotaraptor'', considering it likely a chimera made up of different reptile bones jumbled together). Also, ''Utahraptor'' turned out to be more bizarre-looking than JP's raptors in having a stockier build, shorter legs and tail, and a procumbent jaw. |
| 58 | * ''Film/JurassicParkIII'': A two-fold example: |
| 59 | ** The size of ''Spinosaurus'', known by mostly fragmentary remains at the time, was exaggerated in order to make it a more terrible threat than the previous films' ''Tyrannosaurus''. Later findings revealed that ''Spinosaurus'' was the largest carnivorous dinosaur ''of all time''. |
| 60 | ** The scene with the ''Spinosaurus'' swimming behind a river boat and sneaking on it was recycled from the first book, where a ''Tyrannosaurus'' did this on a park's tour barge. It was already known at the time that ''Spinosaurus'' was mainly a fish eater but it was believed it stayed on the river margins and captured passing fish like a crane or a grizzly bear. It was also believed at the time that ''Spinosaurus'' had a stiff tail like other theropods, making it incapable of swaying movements for swimming. In 2014, it was discovered that ''Spinosaurus'' was adapted to swimming to the point of being semiaquatic and having trouble walking on land on two legs. The 2020 discovery of ''Spinosaurus'''s tadpole-like tail further confirmed its aquatic lifestyle. |
| 61 | * In ''Film/KingKong2005'', Skull Island apparently has a breed of theropod dinosaurs that developed batlike wings in lieu of feathers. Ten years after the film's release, a ''real'' theropod with a similar adaptation (''Yi qi'') was confirmed to exist, though it still has feathers. |
| 62 | * In ''Film/NapoleonDynamite'', the main character doodles "ligers", "a lion-tiger mix, bred for its skills in magic". Since the creature looks nothing like a real one, either the character or the filmmakers were unaware that lions and tigers can breed in captivity and that the hybrids they produce are indeed known as "ligers". People who watched the movie first may believe that reports of ligers are hoaxes because of it. This is addressed in [[WesternAnimation/NapoleonDynamite the animated spin-off series]], where Napoleon encounters much more realistic ligers that are lazy zoo animals with no magical powers. [[spoiler:Except one cub, who is every bit as awesome and magical as Napoleon believes.]] |
| 63 | * ''Film/RebirthOfMothra3'': When Mothra Leo first arrives in the late Cretaceous period, there are a couple glimpses of a ''Brachiosaurus''-like sauropod living alongside ''Tyrannosaurus'' and ''Triceratops'', as a seeming case of AnachronismStew. Years later, it would turn out that titanosaurs (including ''Alamosaurus'', the sauropod that was a contemporary of ''T. rex'') were closely related to brachiosaurs. |
| 64 | * The 1940 film ''Film/OneMillionBC'' (the original version of the more famous 1966 ''Film/OneMillionYearsBC'') features a "dinosaur" that is [[{{Slurpasaur}} a crocodile with a sail taped on its back]]. Discoveries in 2014 and then in 2020 demonstrated that ''Spinosaurus'' had very crocodile-like proportions (elongated skull, short hind legs, broad paddle-like tail), looking very much like a crocodile with a sail on its back. |
| 65 | * Many film dinosaurs also involved large lizards with horns taped to their brows to give them a ceratopsian-like appearance, with a notable example being 1960's ''The Lost World''. In 2017, ''Shringasaurus'', a giant, quadrapedal archosaur relative was discovered, with a roughly lizard-like body plan aside from the presence of two brow horns. |
| 66 | * The evil Skeksis from ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'', resembling reptilian vultures, look more like accurate depictions of dromaeosaurids than [[RaptorAttack any of the depictions of those dinosaurs]] at the time of the movie's release. |
| 67 | [[/folder]] |
| 68 | |
| 69 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 70 | * ''Literature/AllYesterdays'': ''All Your Yesterdays'', the [[OfficialFanSubmittedContent fan-made]] response contains three hypotheticals about extinct animals that later turned up on the fossil record: |
| 71 | ** A filter-feeding anomalocarid, "Cetiocaris", was almost immediately followed by the discovery of ''Tamisocaris''. The discoverers referenced the fictional creature directly when they proposed the name ''Cetiocaridae'' for a new clade containing ''Tamisocaris''. |
| 72 | ** The small, tree-climbing, long-fingered scansoriopterygid dinosaurs, which were interpreted at the time as aye-aye like, were speculated to be gliders with membranous wings similar to gliding mammals, but unheard of in dinosaurs. ''Yi qi'', a new scansoripterigid with preserved membrane impressions, was published three years later. |
| 73 | ** The pterosaur ''Rhamphorhynchus'' depicted as diving into the water to catch its prey, rather than skim-feeding on the surface. This is now considered the likelier feeding method of most pterosaurs. |
| 74 | * ''Literature/EarthsChildren'': In the second book (1982), set in Eastern Europe 30,000 years ago, Ayla claims to have seen a sabertooth cat once. This is treated as an example of NotSoExtinct, with Jondalar being amazed and saying that he only knows of a very old man who saw one, but it was a stretch because sabertooths were believed to have disappeared from the Old World in the Middle Pleistocene, thousands of years before modern humans colonized Europe. However, in 2003 a ''Homotherium'' jaw was fished out of the North Sea, and dated right to the time setting of the book. |
| 75 | * Insofar as humans qualify as animals, the titular race from Literature/TheHobbit became recognised as a reality of human history when paleontologists discovered [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis Homo floresiensis]], a species of 3-foot tall hominins that lived on the Flores island roughly a thousand years ago. |
| 76 | * ''Literature/TheMonsterOfPartridgeCreek'': The story features a large carnivorous dinosaur hunting fast prey, living in a snowy climate, and having a thick coat of feathers... '''''in 1902'''''. Ironically, the last two points are subversions, as ''Ceratosaurus'', the species the creature is based on, was found to have lived in a warm climate and be explicitly not feathered. |
| 77 | * ''Literature/MobyDick'': In the infamous chapter "Cetology," among various fishy takes on its title subject, Ishmael declares that he does not consider dugongs or "lamatins" (manatees) to be whales... which they're not, but it's clear that he holds this view less because of any sound scientific reasoning and more because he doesn't ''like'' them. At the time, mammal classification was in its infancy, and manatees were sometimes considered to be related to whales. Now, it is known that manatees and dugongs are related not to whales, but to ''elephants''. |
| 78 | * ''Literature/TheNewDinosaursAnAlternativeEvolution'': Some types of creature created as part of the book's SpeculativeBiology were later described in some form in real life, although most didn't resemble Dixon's creations except in the most basic concepts. |
| 79 | ** Dwarf island dinosaurs were discovered in the form of Hateg Island dinosaurs and ''Europasaurus''. |
| 80 | ** Long-necked, long-legged running pterosaurs became reality once better remains of azhdarchids were discovered (Dixon's were flightless, however). |
| 81 | ** Small arboreal coelurosaurs, such as microraptorines and scansoriopterygids, did indeed exist. |
| 82 | ** Large flightless birds did evolve in the presence of non-avian dinosaurs. ''Gargantuavis'' in particular is not too unlike the troumble. |
| 83 | ** Fur-like plumage was present on several ornithischians (''Tianyulong'', ''Psittacosaurus'', and ''Kulindadromeus''). |
| 84 | ** A number of dinosaurs are portrayed with "fur", which, at the time, was a very unorthodox idea (it's due to the book largely [[FantasticFaunaCounterpart copy-pasting modern mammals with dinosaur skins]] for its creations, not because of any real consideration between the dinosaur-bird link). As [[ScienceMarchesOn science marched on,]] it was discovered that many dinosaur species were covered in downy feathers that could look fairly fur-like. |
| 85 | ** Some scansoriopterygids -- small Asian coelurosaurs -- such as ''Yi'' and ''Ambopteryx'' have since been discovered to have glided with membranous wings. |
| 86 | * ''Literature/RaptorRed'': |
| 87 | ** Bakker included a therizinosaur ("segnosaur") even though none were known from the right time and place when the book was written. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was depicted as a mountain dweller, therefore [[FridgeBrilliance living in an environment unlikely to preserve its fossils.]] A decade later, a therizinosaur (''Falcarius'') contemporaneous with ''Utahraptor'' was published. Although the book depicts them as burrowing quadrupeds (since even their identity as theropods was tenuous at the time). |
| 88 | ** When the book was written in 1995, no Early Cretaceous diplodocids were known. Then, in 2014, ''Leinkupal laticauda'' was found in Argentina. Granted, it lived in a different continent from ''Utahraptor'', but it still lived at exactly the same time. |
| 89 | * ''Literature/PaddingtonBear'': |
| 90 | ** The titular character is a bear from Peru. The only bears native to that region are spectacled bears, but Paddington looks more like a brown bear. Around 2016, a wildlife photographer discovered a spectacled bear with a golden-brown fur color, different from the normal dark brown or black fur color of common spectacled bears. The photographer even noted the similarity between the golden spectacled bear and Paddington Bear. |
| 91 | ** Paddington was originally supposed to come from "DarkestAfrica"; it was changed to "Darkest Peru" after someone pointed that there are no bears in Africa but there are in Peru. However, before the 19th century there was indeed a small brown bear subspecies in the mountains of North Africa. |
| 92 | * In Creator/JohnHodgman's ''Literature/TheAreasOfMyExpertise'', he tells a long, [[LittleKnownFacts absurd]] story about how the term "lobster" originally referred to a type of sea otter found on the coast of New England, which was driven to extinction by the introduction of "new lobsters" to America (a story parodying the disastrous introduction of starlings to the New World in RealLife), and how for a while, Maine fishermen would use the term "furry old lobster" to distinguish the otters from the crustaceans. Hodgman's friend Music/JonathanCoulton even wrote a tie-in ProtestSong called "Furry Old Lobster", lamenting the decline of the fictional animal, turning it into a kind of a [[WeaselMascot mascot]] for the book. A few years later, the yeti crab - a deep-sea, fur-bearing crustacean - was discovered. In Hodgman's next book, ''Literature/MoreInformationThanYouRequire'', he takes the existence of an actual furry lobster-like creature as kind of a personal challenge from reality, and promises the reader that his ability to make up truly ridiculous lies is undiminished. |
| 93 | ** On a whole different level, there was an actual marine mustelid in New England that was driven to extinction by human hunting in the 1860s: the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_mink Sea Mink]]. |
| 94 | * ''Literature/QuestForFire'': |
| 95 | ** Despite being published in 1911, the book has even more different hominid species than the film, all coexisting on a vaguely Eurasian setting. At the time it was only known that Neanderthals and ''H. sapiens'' had coexisted in Europe. Nowadays, we know that Neanderthals, ''H. sapiens'', and a third hominid species (Denisovans) coexisted in Central Asia. Also that several hominid species existed at the same time in early Pleistocene Africa and in Late Pleistocene Southeast Asia. |
| 96 | ** The "blue-haired men" were modeled on African mountain gorillas, which had been [[RippedFromTheHeadlines recently discovered]] at the time. Twenty-four years later, the giant gorilla-like ape ''Gigantopithecus'' was discovered in East Asia. |
| 97 | * ''Literature/TheSurprisingAdventuresOfBaronMunchausen'': In the first (tall) tale, Munchausen is attacked by a lion in a hunting trip in Sri Lanka. Back in 1785 educated people would laugh at the claim that lions lived in that island, but in 1939 it was discovered fossil evidence that a lion subspecies (''Panthera leo sinhaleyus'') inhabited Sri Lanka thirty-seven thousand years ago. |
| 98 | [[/folder]] |
| 99 | |
| 100 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 101 | * The Diggers from ''Series/{{Dinosapien}}'' are a case of this. They look, at best, like bipedal ankylosaurs, and at worst, like something totally made-up. But in 2022, a real bipedal armored dinosaur called ''Jakapil'' was discovered in Argentina. |
| 102 | * ''Series/TheFutureIsWild'' (2003): |
| 103 | ** The 5 million years AD segment has "Carakillers", a flightless terror bird-mimic evolved from South American caracara. A Pleistocene flightless caracara was discovered in Jamaica in 2008. |
| 104 | ** Fans assumed that the four-winged Great Blue Windrunner, from the 100 million years AD segment, was inspired by ''Microraptor'', a gliding dinosaur discovered to have been four-winged in the same year. However, according to Creator/DougalDixon, the Windrunner was thought up alone by the show's ornithology consultant Phil Currie, without Currie being aware of ''Microraptor''. |
| 105 | ** The Spitfire Beetle is a beetle that uses mimicry to prey on vertebrates that would normally eat them. In 2011, it was discovered that ''Epomis'' ground beetles do exactly that, only with frogs instead of birds. |
| 106 | * ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts'' cheaped out on their portrayal of European cave lions by reusing their ''Dinofelis'' (a [[OxymoronicBeing short-fanged sabertooth cat]]) with a different coat. However, in 2003 it was discovered that a short-fanged sabertooth cat, ''Homotherium'', was alive in the time and location of the episode. |
| 107 | * ''Series/WalkingWithCavemen'': The scene where an eagle hunts a baby ''Australopithecus'' is likely based on reports of African eagles hunting monkeys. Three years later, it was published that the Taung Child (the first identified ''Australopithecus'' and probably the most famous after Lucy) had been killed and eaten by an eagle. |
| 108 | * In ''Series/PlanetDinosaur'' the chaoyangopterid model is re-utilised to represent some pterosaurs in the mid-Cretaceous of Africa. As it happens, an actual chaoyangopterid would be found there a decade after the show debuted, ''Apatorhamphus''. This is a subversion, however, as ''Apatorhamphus'' had a distinctively downward-sloping skull, unlike the relatively flat skull of ''Lacusovagus'', which the model is apparently based on. |
| 109 | * ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs'': |
| 110 | ** The dromaeosaurid from the last episode, "Death of a Dynasty", was seen as an example of AnachronismStew, as ''Dromaeosaurus'' (what the animal was called during production despite its flaws) was extinct by the K/Pg extinction. Skip ahead to 2013, and the dromaeosaur ''Acheroraptor'', just the right size to match with this creature, is discovered in the exact formation the episode takes place in (indeed, the study naming ''Acheroraptor'' states that the dromaeosaur teeth of Hell Creek initially assigned, tentatively, to ''Dromaeosaurus'' likely belonged to ''Acheroraptor''). |
| 111 | ** The ''Tapejara'' (now considered ''Tupandactylus navigans'') in "Giant of the Skies" were restored as mainly black with a red crest, years before fossil evidence confirmed those same colors. |
| 112 | ** The ''Didelphodon'', while completely inaccurate per [[ScienceMarchesOn/WalkingWithDinosaurs later fossil evidence]] (which found it had a more otter-like body, rather than badger-like), turned out to be a remarkably close depiction of other Cretaceous mammals also discovered later, like ''Repenomamus'' and ''Nanocuris'', both of which are known to have eaten [[WhosLaughingNow dinosaur]] [[EatsBabies hatchlings]]. |
| 113 | ** The German ''Rhamphorhynchus'' is shown coexisting with Oxford Clay Formation in England, likely based off fragmentary fossils from the site previously classified within the genus (and ''Rhamphorhynchus'' being thought to have a much bigger geographical range at the time due to scrappy Jurassic pterosaur fossils from around the world ascribed to it), but have since been determined to be dubious and likely represent unrelated rhamphorhynchoids (on top of the fact the episode is set more than ten million years after all the Oxford Clay fauna died out). However, an actual English ''Rhamphorhynchus'' was discovered in 2002 (named ''Rhamphorhynchus etchesi'' in 2015), and lived at the exact time the episode is set to boot (in the younger Kimmeridge Clay Formation). |
| 114 | [[/folder]] |
| 115 | |
| 116 | [[folder:Puppet Shows]] |
| 117 | * ''Franchise/TheMuppets'': |
| 118 | ** In 2015, [[https://www.livescience.com/50548-kermit-the-frog-look-alike-discovered.html a frog species resembling Kermit the Frog (and cartoon frogs in general, really) was discovered in Costa Rica]]. |
| 119 | [[/folder]] |
| 120 | |
| 121 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 122 | * ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpires'': The first game is notorious for MisplacedWildlife, featuring African elephants, bald eagles, and alligators in a setting that was originally intended to include only Greece and the Middle East. However, Microsoft [[ExecutiveMeddling told]] Ensemble to include East Asian factions to boost sales in Asia... and there happens to be a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alligator Chinese species of alligator.]] |
| 123 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 124 | ** Slugma and Magcargo are a Fire/Rock-type slug and snail made of lava and debuted in [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Generation 2]] in 1999. Two years later, [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaly-foot_snail a species of snails]] would be discovered to live near volcanoes, camouflaged as volcanic rocks and lava as well as able to withstand high temperatures in order to live there. However, Slugma and Magcargo would not be found in volcanic areas in the games until after the real-life volcanic snails were discovered. |
| 125 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' introduced Clobbopus, a curious octopus Pokémon who investigates things by punching at them. A year or two later, scientists confirmed that [[https://www.npr.org/2020/12/24/950143025/watch-octopuses-punch-fish-sometimes-for-no-apparent-reason real life octopuses do deliberately punch fish, sometimes for no reason]]. |
| 126 | * ''VideoGame/{{Saurian}}'''s decision to paint the ''Dakotaraptor'' eggs blue was inspired by eggshells of ''Oviraptor'', a distant relative of dromaeosaurs (the devs only decided to also feature a playable oviraptorosaur, ''Anzu'', later). It was later discovered that the eggs of ''Deinonychus'', a very close relative of ''Dakotaraptor'', were also blue. |
| 127 | * ''VideoGame/DinoCrisis'': |
| 128 | ** Some of the most [[DemonicSpiders difficult enemies]] in the first game are the ''Therizinosaurus'', depicted as carnivorous dinosaurs with giant slashing claws on their hands. It was not until after the game was released that real therizinosaurs were established as herbivores. However, their portrayal bears a resemblance to a real dinosaur called ''Megaraptor'', which at the time was itself mistakenly believed to be a giant dromaeosaur. |
| 129 | ** The second game features the gorgonopsian therapsid ''Inostrancevia'', which is inaccurately portrayed as an armored reptile rather than the mammal relative it was in real life. However, its depiction makes it more similar to the terrestrial crocodyliforms, particularly ''Kaprosuchus'' discovered years later. |
| 130 | * ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'': The Kremlings steal the Kongs' banana hoard because, [[AllThereInTheManual according to the manual]], they are good source of nutrition, despite crocodiles being carnivores. In real life, crocodilians actually do like to eat fruit, although it's akin to humans eating sweets. |
| 131 | [[/folder]] |
| 132 | |
| 133 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 134 | * ''Webcomic/HeroOhHero'' features an InUniverse version; there's a race of people with strong, nature-themed magic, pointed ears and green coloration who are called "elves" as a [[FantasticRacism slur]] by TheEmpire, because of their resemblance to the elves in their folklore. |
| 135 | [[/folder]] |
| 136 | |
| 137 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 138 | * ''Website/SpecWorld'': |
| 139 | ** It's noted that while the Mesozoic fossil record for [[AlternateHistoryDinosaurSurvival Specworld]] is by large the same as our world (since the explicit point of divergence is the K/Pg-extinction event), there are a few fossils found exclusively there, which the text speculates represent taxa that exist in both timelines and simply have not been found in our world yet. One of these is a monotreme from the Late Cretaceous of South America (called ''Mirabilotheridium''). In 2022, a monotreme from the Late Cretaceous of South America was indeed described (known as ''Patagorhynchus''). |
| 140 | ** The website also placed then-indeterminate southern hemisphere ornithopods like ''Gasparinisaura'' and ''Leaellynasaura'' in the made-up group "Australornithopoda". In 2019, these southern ornithopods were found to be a natural group after all, and this group was given the name Elasmaria. |
| 141 | [[/folder]] |
| 142 | |
| 143 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 144 | * ''WesternAnimation/GodzillaTheSeries'': Komodithrax is depicted as reproducing asexually like Godzilla. While iguanas capable of reproducing asexually are still unknown, in 2005, it was discovered Komodo dragons are indeed able to produce fertile eggs without a mate. |
| 145 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheWuzzles'': Crocosaurus is a crocodile-dinosaur hybrid as his name suggests. Not only are crocodiles and dinosaurs closely related to each other, but there were dinosaur-like relatives of crocodiles (rauisuchians, aetosaurs, etc.) and dinosaurs with crocodile-like heads (spinosaurids). |
| 146 | * ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': |
| 147 | ** Mr. Fluffypants is depicted as having a completely white front end, white feet, and a completely black back end and tail reminiscent of black pants. There is a type of cat with white spotting that was discovered in Russia in the 2010s that [[http://messybeast.com/blue-eye-breeds.htm creates such a pattern, called the Panda pattern,]] in the mid- to high-grade form. |
| 148 | ** The teal coloration of Perry the Platypus (done simply for RuleOfCool) was surprisingly [[https://twitter.com/DanPovenmire/status/1322383183883632641 validated]] by the discovery published in 2020 that platypuses actually have biofluorescent greenish pelts when viewed in ultraviolet light conditions. Similarly, real platypuses really ''do'' make [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsd7ZfdZcNU noises]] similar to Perry's chattering (though of course not with their teeth, which they don't have). Interviews have indicated that neither the show's creators nor [[Creator/DeeBradleyBaker Perry's voice actor]] were aware of this during production. |
| 149 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheScoobyDooShow'': The Snow Beast from "A Scary Night With a Snow Beast Fright" looks like a ''T. rex'' covered in white fuzz. In the 1970s. Before the discoveries that many dinosaurs had body coverings of feathers. That's right, one of the first feathered dinosaurs ever to appear in fiction was in a Scooby-Doo episode. Granted, it was a ScoobyDooHoax, but still! |
| 150 | * ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'': In the episode "Jurassic Jumble", Darkwing gets turned into a dinosaur that not only retains his feathery duck's head, but also appears to be covered in green feathers. And this was only a few years before the first feathered non-avian dinosaur would be discovered. Ironically, Darkwing's dinosaur form is a NotZilla, much larger than any feathered (or featherless) dinosaur. Doubly ironically, one of the largest dinosaurs with feathers, ''Deinocheirus'', would be revealed to have a duck-like head in 2014. |
| 151 | * ''WesternAnimation/SittingDucks'': In "Aldo the Duck", Aldo grows feathers as a result of overdosing on duck hormone patches. In 2017, scientists have discovered crocodilians have the same feather development genes as in birds, even tweaking the genes of alligator embryos to trigger the first steps in growing feathers. |
| 152 | * ''WesternAnimation/DinkTheLittleDinosaur'': In "Sea Rescue", the protagonists have to help two plesiosaurs who are stranded on a beach after a tidal wave. At the time, it was thought that plesiosaurs would have been able to crawl out of the water on their own, the way seals do, but we now know that they were fully aquatic just like whales, making the episode ahead of its time. |
| 153 | * ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Taz's trademark noises consisting of growls, screeches, snorts and yells were improvisions by Mel Blanc due to no one in the staff knowing what Tasmanian devils sound like. However, real-life Tasmanian devils do make noises that sound similar to Taz's. Quite a bit of Taz's behavior and traits are within caricature distance of the real animal as well- they're known for having rather belligerent temperaments and a habit of eating anything vaguely food-like or food-adjacent, backed by absurd jaw strength that lets them replicate some of their cartoon counterpart's feats like chewing through metal cages and fences. |
| 154 | [[/folder]] |
| 155 | |
| 156 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 157 | * In 500 BC, Hanno the Navigator described a tribe of "hairy women" he encountered in Gabon, that the locals called "Gorillas". His report was largely disregarded as a traveler's tale, but in 1847, a large, hairy hominid was indeed discovered in Africa, which was named "gorilla" after the creature described by Hanno. The animal, now called the western gorilla, has become prominently featured in popular culture from the 1860s on. [[note]] The eastern gorilla (also known as the mountain gorilla) was first described in 1903. [[/note]] Whether or not Hanno's "gorilla" is the same as the animal we know today is still unknown. |
| 158 | * In 1843, naturalist Edward Newman suggested that the recently discovered pterosaurs were bat-like, flying marsupials, and created [[https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/early-pterosaur-reconstructions/swellppt/ a piece of art]] portraying them as such. While he couldn't have been more wrong, he depicted them with mammalian fur, which looks quite similar to the pycnofibres that pterosaurs had in real life. |
| 159 | * For a long time, pterosaurs with both teeth ''and'' head crests only were known in popular culture, mostly in the form of toys (smaller species with toothy jaws lacked crests, whereas larger species with spectacular crests lacked teeth). In 2003, a pterosaur having both features was discovered, and was given the name ''Ludodactylus'', from the Latin word "ludus", meaning "toy". |
| 160 | * In 1915, an ornithologist named Steve William Bebee hypothesized a "Tetrapteryx" stage in bird evolution where avian ancestors had feathers on their wings and legs (it should be noted that the evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs would not be established for several decades, and indeed was discredited at the time due to a number of assumptions now known to be false). In 2003, ''Microraptor'' was discovered, a dinosaur which had long feathers on both its arms and legs. |
| 161 | * Back in the 1990s, the "Longhair Sphynx" or "Powderpuff Sphynx" was a fancy April Fool's joke, poking fun at breed classification by registries. Several years after the joke, a longhaired mutant Sphynx really did appear. Said cat was a neutered domestic pet. It had long, fine fur on the chest and sides and short fur on the legs, but was bald elsewhere. This gave it the appearance of a maned cat. |
| 162 | ** In February 2009, a similar cat, known as Ugly Bat Boy, was reported in Exeter New Hampshire, USA. He was part of a litter of four kittens, two normal, plus he and a similar-looking female sibling that died at a few weeks old. |
| 163 | * In 1903, ''Brontosaurus'' was judged to have simply been an ''Apatosaurus'' skeleton (in large part because its original classification relied on a skull that turned out to have been taken from an unrelated sauropod, ''Camarasaurus'') and all specimens of it were reassigned to the older genus. Popular fiction however continued to depict ''Brontosaurus'' as its own thing over the following century. In 2015, analysis of ''Apatosaurus parvus'' (formerly ''Brontosaurus parvus'') remains decided that they were distinct enough from other ''Apatosaurus'' skeletons to classify as a distinct genus and resurrected the ''Brontosaurus'' name for them, making those older works Accidentally Correct in hindsight. |
| 164 | * The same goes for any genera that were a fairly common sight in older works that had been considered to be a junior synonym but later turned out to be separate after all. Particularly ''Dinichthys'' (formerly synonymous with ''Dunkleosteus''), ''Eohippus'' (formerly synonymous with ''Hyracotherium''), ''Scolosaurus'' (formerly synonymous with ''Euoplocephalus''), and ''Stenonychosaurus'' (formerly synonymous with ''Troodon''[[note]]ironically now itself a dubious genus[[/note]]). |
| 165 | * An old Australian hoax pulled on tourists is that of the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_bear drop bear]] a supposed deadly koala that jumps unsuspecting people from trees. Cue the discovery of [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo_carnifex Thylacoleo carnifex,]] the "marsupial lion". Some scientists believe it jumped down at prey from trees (like the similarly sized leopard does), and it coexisted with prehistoric humans. It remains unclear if the drop bear hoax has origins in native oral history of the creature, or the similarities are a mere coincidence. Even better, since the marsupial lion was closesly related to koalas (and it's skeleton is nearly identical), it's likely that they would have looked like giant koalas. |
| 166 | * The hoop snake is one of the many FearsomeCrittersOfAmericanFolklore (and Australia), described as being able to grab its tail in its mouth and cartwheel down hills. This ability is also attributed to the Japanese {{Tsuchinoko}}. It was meant to be a ridiculous, made-up TallTale beastie, but in 2023, [[https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Observations-and-description-of-a-rare-escape-in-a-Quah-Grismer/33bae07e7b02fc6f53c688b3bd908b35d1fa2b4e a species of snake was actually filmed]] doing this exact thing as a defence mechanism. |
| 167 | * When Gideon Mantell restored the first ever dinosaur skeleton in 1834, he famously misinterpreted ''Iguanodon'''s thumb spike as a nose horn. But like all dinosaurs, ''Iguanodon'' actually had a nose horn... as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_tooth a hatchling]]. |
| 168 | * ''Andrewsarchus'' was originally described as a mesonychid, which were believed to be related to whales. It was later discovered that mesonychids were not whale relatives, but also that ''Andrewsarchus'' (not actually a mesonychid), was. |
| 169 | * Instances of PolarBearsAndPenguins that keep their penguin species and time setting vague (or not explicitly set in any time after the 1850s) are this, by virtue of (Antarctic) penguins being actually named after a flightless, black-and-white bird from the Arctic that was hunted to extinction in the 1840s, also called the great auk. |
| 170 | * The {{Baku}} of Japanese mythology heavily resemble tapirs, even though they were first depicted long before any Japanese person had seen a tapir. The modern Japanese word for tapir is, you guessed it, Baku. [[DreamStealer They don't eat dreams, though]]. |
| 171 | * Any older work that depicts ''Iguanodon'' battling with ''Megalosaurus'', despite the former being from the Early Cretaceous and the latter from the Middle Jurassic. In 1996, it would turn out ''Iguanodon'' did live with a large carnivorous dinosaur, ''Neovenator'', although ''Neovenator'' was related to ''Allosaurus'' rather than ''Megalosaurus''. On the other hand, the spinosaurs turned out to be related to ''Megalosaurus'', and both ''Iguanodon'' and ''Neovenator'' did live with spinosaurs, particularly ''Baryonyx''. |
| 172 | [[/folder]] |
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