Animal Motifs / Other Media

Examples of Animal Motifs that do not fit in any of the trope's other example subpages.

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Art

• In North America: Portrait of a Continent, national and state animals appear readily in their appropriate locations, totaling well over 400. Just a handful of examples include a polar bear near Churchill, Manitoba (and several other places in the Arctic tundra), a lobster off the coast of Maine, sled-dogs headed for Nome, a clay-coloured thrush in Costa Rica, a white raven in Haida Gwaii, a bighorn sheep (among several other creatures) in Nevada...
• The Persistence of Memory: Ants are gnawing away at the leftmost, orange watch while a fly sits on another, symbolizing rot and decay of memory.
• The Weimaraner is the trademark of William Wegman's works.

Asian Animation

• In Guardian Fairy Michel, the Black Hammers' robots are all shaped like animals, such as a gorilla, a frog, a kangaroo, and a dog.
• Happy Heroes: It's not touched upon much, but based on part of his hood forming a beak-like shape and him owning a pet owl, Huo Haha seems to be associated with owls.
• White Snake (2019): The General and his forces are associated with cranes, he even makes a giant magical crane made of paper during the Final Battle.

Audio Play

• In The Cartographer's Handbook the Wendigo are often compared to big cats such as pumas.

Comic Strips

• Played for Laughs in this strip◊ by Quino.
• Besides having a tiger for a best friend, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes frequently visualizes himself as animals. His favorites are dinosaurs, with him usually as an Allosaurus or a Tyrannosaurus rex, and those around him as herbivores.

Game Books

• Lone Wolf: Lone Wolf has a wolf motif, unsurprisingly.

Manhua

• Ravages of Time leans on the same Shu = Dragon and Wu = Tiger motifs that they usually get in popular lore, while Sima Yi is the titular phoenix in the series' Chinese title^note Fiery Phoenix Scorches the Plains, the rest being the translated/reordered name of Liaoyuan Huo, although at least twice the infamous "wolf neck" comes into play.
• School Shock has Super-Soldier Cyborgs named Vanguards. They are themed on bees, praying mantises, ants, moths and spiders.

Podcasts

• In the Cool Kids Table game Small Magic, the royal family is connected to birds. They tend to listen to them and those assisting the family.
• The main cast of The Adventure Zone: Balance all have animal associations, laid out explicitly with their disguises in Petals to the Metal and elaborated later on.
  • Magnus is associated with bears; it's later revealed that a bear taught him the meaning of bravery. He's also associated with dogs, as he repeatedly asks for a dog as a pet, his first heroic act was rescuing a dog from bullies, and after the world is saved he opens a dog training school.
  • Merle is associated with owls; later, when he loses an eye, he gets an eyepatch with an owl on it.
  • Taako is associated with mongooses; it's later revealed that a family of mongooses taught him how to speak "animal".
• Brian Davis of True Geordie has a liking towards to lions. He has a massive lion tattoo on his upper right bicep and there is a lion poster in his studio. In the interview with Logan Paul, there is a lion figure in the background. He also wore a t-shirt of a lion.

Sports

• 1960s Portuguese soccer player Eusebio was also known as "The Black Panther" because of his speed, his powerful strike, and the fact that he was black.
  • Soviet goalkeeper Lev Yashin was "The Black Spider" for its impressive saves and an all-black uniform.
• Quite a few national soccer teams have animals on the logo (France has a rooster, England has three lions), or as a nickname (Brazil are the "Little Canary team", Nigeria the "Super Eagles", Cameroon "The Indomitable Lions").
  • Common for domestic clubs as well. The Premier League currently includes The Tigers (Hull), The Black Cats (Sunderland), The Eagles (Crystal Palace), The Foxes (Leicester), The Magpies (Newcastle), The Swans (Swansea) and The Throstles (West Bromwich Albion, though largely out of use).
• Many American sports teams—too many to count, really. A decent estimate is that about a quarter to half the sports teams in the US and Canada are named for animals, and all of those will exploit this in their advertising.
• Kobe Bryant is known as "The Black Mumba".

Theatre

• Most of the Cirque du Soleil shows directed by Franco Dragone from Saltimbanco through La Nouba invoke bird imagery, usually through one or more characters and their costume(s).
  • Saltimbanco: The Songbird (the lead singer).
  • Mystere: The Red Bird, the Birds of Prey, and the bungee trapeze artists.
  • Alegria: The evil nobles are known as the Nostalgic Old Birds, and wear masks that appear a cross between human and bird faces.
  • Quidam: Zoe has a pet bird in a cage in the opening scene.
  • La Nouba: The Green Bird.
• A Little Night Music:
  Carl-Magnus: Watch him, Charlotte. Watch them both like a...
  Charlotte: Hawk, I know, dear. You're a tiger, I'm a hawk. We're our own zoo.
• Birds are strongly associated with Lizzie. Lizzie is fascinated by the pigeons in her family's barn, even talking to them sometimes, and is distraught when they are killed. She's described early on as "not the brightest bird," and the song "The Soul of the White Bird" is used as a metaphor for her mental state. She also makes lots of references to "flying away," and the last sound of the show is a flock of birds taking off — symbolizing Lizzie's freedom.
• In Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Momma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad, when the ultra-snobbish Madame Rosepettle is interrogating Rosalie, she asks her if her love for cats includes alley cats. "Especially alley cats," Rosalie says. "I thought so," Madame Rosepettle says, and resumes her previous Slut-Shaming tirade. That "alley cat" happens to be an old derogatory epithet for a sexually free woman is probably not a coincidence here.
• Prima Facie: In the opening lines Tessa compares herself to a thoroughbred horse — a well-trained powerhouse with killer instincts — in her legal career.
• In Trifles, Minnie is represented by birds and this is given more details in the book A Jury of Her Peers, where, it's mentioned that, before her marriage, Minnie was a free spirit, who loved to sing and wore pretty clothes. Before and during her marriage, she kept a canary to which John killed, said canary representing herself from years ago and the the Minnie that was "killed" by her marriage. Likewise, the caged bird is meant to represent a woman's place in 19th/early 20th century society.

Toys

• LEGO:
  • Numerous LEGO Castle and Aquazone factions.
  • The animal tribes of Legends of Chima utilize motifs based, of course, on themselves.
  • BIONICLE:
    • Vastus has a snake motif, with snake ornaments on his shoulders, a helmet based off a snake, and a snake-like staff with the fangs forming a blade that injects venom.
    • Although the '08 Makuta and Shadow Matoran respectively shapeshifted or were mutated into bat or insect-looking forms, it seems the masks that some wore had been vaguely animal-like to begin with.
    • The Barraki all have motifs of sea creatures, which they can command:
    • Pridak embodies the shark's bloodthirstiness and can summon hordes of sharks. The feet on his set can hook together to create a shark's tail fin.
    • Kalmah draws inspiration from cephalopods, and is the breeder of the Barraki's vampiric squid projectiles.
    • Ehlek is inspired by electric eels. He besieges the Matoran settlement of Mahri Nui with an army of eels.
    • Mantax is inspired by rays and like them, he can bury himself in the sand and attack with both venom and electricity.
    • Carapar takes inspiration from crabs and crustaceans, with heavy armor and a pair of pincers
    • Takadox is themed after shrimp and other sea arthropods, thanks to his mandibles and twin knives, which bring to mind the claws of a mantis shrimp.
  • Hero Factory's Jungle Planet line had the Heroes adopting various animal motifs for their new armor.
• Mermaid High: Mari sports an octopus motif in her outfit.
• Transformers: Bumblebee has a bug/insect motif that varies in strength between incarnations. Obviously, there's his name and yellow coloration evoking a bee, but his original vehicle mode is a Volkswagen Beetle. Some incarnations give him "wings" and/or "stingers" to play up the bee aspect.

Web Animation

• In Amy, we see this represented in shadows. The titular's shadow is seen as a mouse, something that is small and meek, while her guardian's shadow is a wolf, something predatory. When Amy gets back at her abuser, her shadow becomes a lioness, something that represents courage.
• Helluva Boss:
  • Blitzo has both cats and horses as prominent motifs. For cats, he wakes up Moxxie in the pilot by sitting on his chest and purring, and in "C.H.E.R.U.B", he watches a potential victim of assassination while swaying his tail from side-to-side, like a cat getting ready to pounce. With horses, Blitzo is shown on multiple occasions to be obsessed with them, often having toy ponies, pictures of horses and horse-themed pornography in his office or on his person.
  • Stolas is an owl demon, so naturally birds are a prominent motif for him. He can occasionally be heard making owl noises, such as hooting or screeching, when excited or stressed out and he's been visually represented with feathers on multiple occasions.
  • All the Seven Deadly Sins have an Animal Motif.
    • Lucifer has snakes, fitting with his role as the serpent that caused the Fall of Man. Most of the snake iconography he's associated with also stylizes the snakes to look like worms crawling out of or coiling around apples, further alluding to his Biblical significance as the one who gave humanity the Forbidden Fruit. In his home show, he also displays a fondness for waterfowl, making novelty rubber ducks in his spare time and implicitly having true form resembling a swan.
    • Bee-Lzebub is visually depicted as a mix between a fox and a honeybee, but bees are the more prominent motif for her, represented through having antennae on her ears and eyelashes, her abode resembling a giant beehive and frequent references to honey, as well as her nickname being, well, "Bee". What is implied to be her true form also looks more insect-like than her regular form.
    • Mammon has a spider motif, with his six additional eyes (giving him eight in total), extra arms and tendency to lounge around on a spider web. He also has Fizzarolli trapped in a metaphorical "web" as an employee he exploits. His true, full demon form takes this further by giving him long, clawed spider legs.
    • Asmodeus has roosters as his main motif; he himself is a hulking demon with colorful rooster feathers, he has decorations with an avian theme (including a cuckoo clock with the "cuckoo" being a rooster with a giant cock) and his personality can easily be described as "cocky". Like the mythological Asmodeus, he also has the heads of a goat and a bull projected on his feathery collar, and said heads appear as decorations on his office doors as well.
• The French animated short "Meet My Family" (turn on captions for English translation) features the members of the titular family with animal-like designs to compliment their various colorful personalities, some more subtle than others; the most subtle are the twin aunts at the beginning, who don't borrow any visible traits from an animal, but the room they're introduced in is decorated all over with cute pictures of dogs; the cousins resemble chickens as a possible Gossipy Hens joke; the grandfather has a cane in the shape of a fox's head and his green eyes, pointed sideburns and triangular eyebrows compliment that motif; the mother is a Lean and Mean Rich Bitch who slithers about like a snake; and the grandmother is a short, plump, friendly woman with a wide mouth like a toad.
• "Only Girls Get It" depicts various symptoms of PMS as women turning into animals; a prickly hedgehog, a starving black bear, an emotional elephant, and a solitary lioness.
• Red vs. Blue:
  • Caboose has dogs as a motif, specifically, a very big, dumb one. He's friendly, not very smart, and has unrefined manners. This motif gets played up during The Chorus Trilogy, where he treats Freckles as if it was a puppy, expresses fear at being taken to "the vet", and likes to take walks through parks to exercise. It's also revealed in Season 15 that he's color blind.
  • Agent Washington has cats as a motif. His personality in The Recollection is similar to an abused cat, he's one of the most sarcastic characters in the series, and during flashbacks in The Project Freelancer Saga, his Endearingly Dorky personality is outright compared to a naive kitten, and his training room locker has pictures of cats in it. And to top it all off, just like the myth of cats having nine lives, the man seemingly refuses to let anything kill him. Also, in The Shisno Paradox, he mentions that he had previously owned a cat.
  • As his name would imply, Sharkface is identified as a shark, rather ironic for a Pyromaniac. His helmet visor is painted with a shark's mouth akin to old-school nose art, and tattoos of sharks on his chest and back. He is also a fierce hunter trying to find Carolina and Washington to kill them.
• RWBY:
  • Ruby Rose is associated with wolves. She is based on Little Red Riding Hood, she's first introduced fighting Beowolves, a type of monstrous wolf-creature, when she sleeps, she wears pajamas with a cartoonish wolf-face and wears a wolf-eyed Sleep Mask, her Circling Birdies are little wolves, and her bedroom has Beowolf action figures in it. Also, Word of God states that she was supposed to appear more "wolf-like", but animation constraints prevented it.
  • Blake Belladonna has cats as a motif. For one, she's a cat Faunus, she's also sneaky and mysterious, and like many Faunus, she has traits reminiscent of the animal she's a hybrid of, such as liking fish and being scared of dogs.
  • Adam Taurus has a bull motif. He's a bull Faunus, his last name is the latin word for "Bull", the markings on his Cool Mask resemble horns, and when he removes his blindfold, he's revealed to have been branded over his left eye by the SDC, just like how cattle is branded in farms.
  • Junior, the club owner Yang fights in the "Yellow" trailer, has bears as a motif. He's the third largest character in the series, his real name, Hei Xiong, is Chinese for "Black Bear", his club's DJ wears a bear costume, and all of his henchmen use axes with the word "bear" engraved on it.
  • Team CRDL (pronounced "cardinal") contains four members who are all associated with birds. The leader is Cardin Winchester, whose name is associated with cardinals, and he wears a breastplate with a bird in flight on it. Two other teammates also wear armor with birds found somewhere on them: Dove Bronzewing, who is associated with pigeons and doves, and Sky Lark, who is associated with the skylark. The remaining member is Russell Thrush, who looks more like a punk and doesn't wear armor. All the birds have Christian folklore attached to them, hence the "church knight" appearance of most of the team.
  • Velvet Scarlatina has rabbits as a motif. She's a rabbit Faunas, and her eyes are animated differently from other characters, being much wider and more doe-eyed to emphasize her cute appearance.
  • Raven Branwen has birds, specifically, as her name implies, ravens, as a motif. Her last name means "Blessed Raven", her Cool Mask resembles a bird's face and beak, she styles her hair in a way that resembles bird feathers, and like her brother, she can magically shape-shift into a bird.
  • Arslan Altan, the leader of Team ABRN, has lions as a motif. She's the leader of the team, a position associated with lions, her first name is Turkish for "Lion", and her color scheme brings lions to mind.
  • Tyrian Callows has scorpions as a motif. He's a scorpion Faunus, his wrist-blades resemble pincers, and his ponytail resembles a scorpion's tail.
  • Ilia Amitola has a chameleon motif. She's a chameleon Faunus, her weapon is a whip that lashes out like a chameleon's tongue, and her ponytail curls back in on itself like a chameleon's tail.
  • Trifa, a member of the White Fang working under the Albain brothers, has a spider motif. She's a spider Faunus, her symbol is a spider, and her short sword's blade is attached to the handle by a spider-like design.
  • Lil' Miss Malachite used to be afraid of spiders. As a result, she decided to overcome that fear by making spiders work for her. She now runs a criminal information network in Mistral, using the symbol of a spider sitting on a web to identify her criminal headquarters. Every single member of her organization can be identified by the presence of a tattoo of the same symbol somewhere on their body. And to top it all off, she is based on the nursery-rhyme character, Little Miss Muffet.
  • Clover Ebi has kingfishers as a motif. His weapon is named after them, his design (his hair in particular) seems inspired by the bird, and the kingfisher is associated with good fortune, but also tragic death.
  • Harriet Bree has hares as a motif. Her nickname is "Hare", the blond tufts of hair in the front of her hairline resemble long ears, and her semblance is Super-Speed.
  • Marrow Amin has dogs as a motif. He's a canine Faunus, his weapon is a boomerang-rifle named Fetch, and his semblance can paralyze Grimm with the command "Stay".
  • Fiona Thyme has sheep as a motif. She's a sheep Faunus, her hair resembles a sheep's wool, her earrings resemble the tags farm sheep are given, and she has a shy and gentle personality.
  • Robyn Hill has birds as a motif. Her personal symbol is a bird with flared wings, and wings extend out of her crossbow whenever she prepares to use it.

Websites

• From Killerbunnies, we have Arachne, who, fitting of her name, tends to have a spider motif and behaves very much like one, which is to say, she won't bother unless bothered.

Web Videos

• The Carpetbagger associates himself with possums. They show up in most of his animated intros. In this video, he explains that this is because he finds possums weirdly fascinating, and because possums are associated with the Deep South, which is where his channel originally focused on before he started branching out to the whole US.
• Game Grumps:
  • Jon tends to prefer bird Pokémon, along with having a bird sidekick in his own series.
  • Danny is associated with unicorns (The Last Unicorn is reportedly his favorite movie, and an early Ninja Sex Party song, "Unicorn Wizard," established his love for the creature) and Arin is associated with cats (he has pet cats and Dan's Affectionate Nickname for him is "big cat"). Their respective fursonas, crossing over with their Color Motifs, are a blue unicorn and a pink lion respectively^note the latter is Ascended Fanon due to fanartists drawing Arin's fursona as a big cat based on Dan's nickname, which have appeared in media such as Game Grumps Live shows and even official body pillows.
• The Minerva Alliance: The titular Minerva Alliance has birds as its motif. Its logo is the face of a barn owl, its base of operations, Eyrie Command, is named after the term for an eagle's nest and its personnel have bird-themed codenames, such as "Agent Sparrow", "Agent Peregrine", etc.
• Party Crashers:
  • Penguins for Nick, as he used to have a Piplup as his profile picture◊, with the others usually representing Nick's dialogue with a fitting Piplup image or GIF in their videos. Brent in particular loves making fun of this fact whenever penguins are around, even after he changed his profile picture:
    Brent: Guys, look! It's TCNick3!
  • Monkeys for Brent, as he frequently makes monkey noises (usually accompanied by a monkey image or GIF) and often plays as monkeys in video games whenever he's given the option.
    • Also sometimes crocodiles, as he is a King K. Rool main in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• SMPLive:
  • Cooper has a fish motif, being a Fish Person and having fish as a main element of his branding.
  • A more subtle one compared to other server members, but Gold is associated with parrots, as he has many, and is very fond of them.
  • Despite his name being a type of bear, Grizzly's animal motif is dogs — particularly pugs, as his mascot is one and one can be seen on his skin.
  • Travis is associated with both dogs and monkeys — the former due to his branding, and the latter due to his skin. Both reflect his Keet personality quite well.
  • Schlatt is associated with sheep due to his mascot being one.
  • Wilbur has two, and both are sea animals: Whales, due to his "whale facts" booth, and squids, as he performs "The Squid Song" during the SMPLive Talent Show.
• Yo Videogames: Dogs (to be more precise, Pomeranians) are Maximilian's animals of choice. After all, his mascot, Benny, is one. Taken to a logical extreme where, in Tokyo Jungle, Max plays as a Pomeranian while his friend Matt favors the saber-toothed tiger.

Other

• Communications Workers of America has a See 'n' Say toy which depict business officials as animals based on their negative traits.

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