Common Animals Portrayed This Way
- Mice vs. Rats: This is the example cited on the main page, with mice being portrayed as good (if mischievous) and rats as bad. This is probably because rats are bigger and therefore seen as less cute, because the fleas that first carried the bubonic plague were first seen on rats, because rats bite harder than mice (possibly due to the aforementioned size difference) and because some rats live in sewers.
- Bees vs. Wasps: While bees do get portrayed as bad sometimes, if they are portrayed alongside Wicked Wasps, they will likely be portrayed as good. The reasons for this comparison may be that wasps are more aggressive than bees because they can sting a human more than once without dying, and because most wasps don't pollinate flowers while all bees do, and bees make honey while wasps don't.
- Butterflies vs. Moths: Due to butterflies being more colourful and therefore generally regarded as prettier than moths. If the moths are portrayed as straight-up evil, this is overlapping with Beauty Equals Goodness, but sometimes the moths will only be portrayed as ugly or annoying.
- Eagles vs. Vultures: This is due to a few reasons: 1.) Vultures, due to their disproportionate bodies and bald necks, are usually seen as uglier than eagles. 2.) While eagles do eat carrion occasionally, vultures do it a lot more often, making them come across as grosser than eagles, and 3.) Eagles are often seen as noble birds of prey, especially in America and Mexico, where they represent their respective nations.
- Ducks vs. Geese: Probably because geese are more likely to attack humans than ducks are, though it may also be due to the size difference. Swans are also bigger than ducks and known to attack humans, but are usually not portrayed as ducks' evil counterparts due to their elegant appearance and their attacks being less frequent than geese's.
- Dolphins vs. Sharks: While both species are predatory and both have sometimes injured humans, sharks have been known to mistake humans for prey, while this doesn't happen with dolphins. Dolphins also have been known to do tricks (and save humans and other creatures on occasions), which sharks don't do, leading to dolphins being seen as more pleasant. It may also be due in part to sharks having the Scary Teeth that dolphins lack. Orcas, a subspecies of dolphins, is instead portrayed as this to both other dolphins and sharks, due to them having tendencies of eating the latter two in real life.
- Lions vs. Other Big Cats: Big cats such as tigers, leopards, or jaguars generally aren't typecast as villains on their own, they might be portrayed as either antagonists (due to being predators and/or cats) or good (due to being seen as majestic and noble). But if pitted against lions, chances are that tigers, leopards, and other big cats will be cast as the villains/rivals by default since the King of Beasts trope makes the lions seem better, never mind that they are just as dangerous and carnivorous as any other cat. Also goes with Evil Is Bigger, since tigers are bigger than lions, while leopards or cheetahs might be viewed as smaller and weaker and thus more sinister.
- Big Cats vs. Hyenas: Usually in the form of good lions versus evil spotted hyenas but other big cats are just as likely to be cast as the good guys if pitted against hyenas. This one is pretty self-explanatory, as besides being rivals in real life, big cats are generally seen as athletic, courageous, powerful, sharp-witted, majestic, and well-groomed hunters capable of producing a Mighty Roar, and lions, in particular, are seen as royalty among animals, while hyenas are stereotyped as dirty, smelly, ugly, dumb, cowardly, ravenous, and sinister scavengers with a penchant for maniacal laughter. Never mind that hyenas are actually very intelligent and quite capable hunters, and big cats are just as likely (if not more so) to bully hyenas and steal their kills.
- Frogs vs. Toads: Probably due to toads being generally perceived as uglier than frogs, and the superstition that toads give warts. Sometimes, toads aren't portrayed as evil, but simply as gross compared to frogs (unless the work is portraying all amphibians as gross).
- Domestic Dogs vs. Wild Dogs: In a story focusing on domestic dogs, they might be contrasted against wild dogs such as foxes, wolves, dingoes, or coyotes. This is probably because domestic dogs (provided they're well trained) are generally safe to keep as pets, while wild dogs are more dangerous.
- Wolves vs. Coyotes: In a wolf-focused story set in North America, they might be contrasted against coyotes. This is probably because coyotes are considered much more of a pest in the United States than wolves are - their propensity for killing pets and livestock and raiding garbage doesn't help. It doesn't help that coyotes aren't as social compared to wolves, and so the latter are more appealing to humans.
- Non-venomous Snakes vs. Venomous Snakes: While snakes are typically portrayed in a sinister light, venomous snakes are much more likely to lean to the dark side because Venom is Evil. Cobras, due to their hoods, tend to be instead portrayed as the negative counterpart to other snakes, including other venomous species, with the non-venomous pythons being their positive counterparts in particular.
- Elephants vs. Rhinos: Both of them are thick-skinned, gray-colored multi-ton herbivores that tend to live side by side in Sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, but elephants are seen as very intelligent, social, and even emotional animals (which is Truth in Television) and are usually cast as wise and honorable, while rhinos are seen as foul-tempered and dimwitted brutes who charge at anything in sight and generally live by their lonesome (some rhinos are solitary but other species are more social, like the white rhino). Ironically, in real life, elephants are known to bully and even kill rhinos (often for no apparent reason) and both the African and Asian variety cause far more human fatalities each year than any rhino species. note
- Tyrannosaurs vs. Other Theropods: For many decades, Tyrannosaurus rex was the go-to villain in dinosaur media, typically trying to hunt down the friendly herbivorous dinosaurs such as sauropods, stegosaurs, ornithopods, or ceratopsians. However, once it became apparent that audiences gravitated far more toward the predator than its prey, later fiction started portraying tyrannosaurs in a more noble and heroic light, but every hero needs an antagonist to fight, and so other large, less popular theropods, typically Spinosaurus or a large allosaur would often be used as the designated opponent for the king of the dinosaurs (similar to the "lion vs other big cats" trend). Alternatively, dromaeosaurs (who gained a bit of a reputation as Always Chaotic Evil thanks to Jurassic Park) might be presented as the villains, leading to a classic case of Brains Evil, Brawn Good, and the raptors make up for their smaller size by traveling in huge packs.
- Alligators vs. Crocodiles: While crocodilians are usually typecast as villains, alligators are more likely to be portrayed in a positive light than crocodiles are. This may be due to alligators being less aggressive towards humans (although this is also the case for most crocodile species) and also looking less threatening with their rounded, overlapping snouts. Plus, crocodiles are larger than alligators.
