Artificial Animal People

Animals with human attributes (or humans with animal attributes) are common in fiction, especially in fantasy and science fiction (since they do not exist except in fantastical settings). In these sorts of settings, such improbable creatures may be left unexplained, or presumed to be the result of evolution, as humans and other animals are in real life. However, other times the writer of the story justifies their existence by making them the product of deliberate engineering — usually through scientific means.

This trope is about human-like animals or animal-like humans created through science. The motivations behind such a project may vary; perhaps the resulting creatures are created by the military as Super Soldiers, perhaps they are created by a misanthropic scientist trying to replace humanity with animal-people, maybe they are simply the result of pure scientific curiosity. In any case, these beings often undergo the same treatment as Artificial Intelligences, Artificial Humans and other scientifically-created life forms — abuse from dispassionately cruel scientists and prejudiced humans, usually prompting them to Escape from the Lab and unite with others of their kind as a Secret Project Refugee Family. Expect a lot of thorny questions about What Measure Is a Non-Human?.

Often the result of genetic engineering, with human and animal genes mixed and matched (either from conception or later on in their life) to create a being with the best of both worlds, a sort of human-animal hybrid. A common project for Mad Scientists, especially Evilutionary Biologists. May be on any point of the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism, from Little Bit Beastly to Beast Man to Funny Animal — however, animals given human intelligence (and maybe the ability to speak) but no other augmentations belong in the Uplifted Animal sub-trope, not here. As a rule of thumb, if it walks on two legs, it belongs here. If they start out as humans or animals, it's Was Once a Man and Anthropomorphic Transformation by science respectively.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Fish-human hybrids are a big part of Blue Submarine No. 6, being the "children" of a Misanthrope Supreme Emperor Scientist who intends for them to inherit the Earth in place of humanity.
• Human-like Chimeras in Fullmetal Alchemist are made by taking a human being and fusing them with an animal using alchemy, which in the setting is treated less like magic than a science. Chimeras need a human base to be capable of speech, though this fact is a state secret.
• The Beastmen in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann were engineered by Lordgenome to enforce his rule, combining a basic human shape with traits of various animals. For instance, Viral is part cat and part shark. In addition to giving them whatever extra abilities would be useful, they are all sterile, ensuring that they cannot possess Spiral Power, which Lordgenome is trying to suppress.

Comic Books

• The entire cast of Albedo: Erma Felna EDF are sapient and humanoid versions of Earth animals, presumably thanks to the Creators that brought life to their space sector. No one knows who they are or why they decided to put many different races in a single place, and many scientists are trying to find any clue about who they really are. It's eventually revealed that the Creators were humans, who engineered anthropomorphics for the sole purpose of being guinea pigs for a big, unethical social scientific experiment.
• The DCU:
  • One of Batman's semi-frequent antagonists is Man-Bat, a formerly human scientist named Kirk Langstrom who took a serum made from bat DNA to cure his deafness and ended up transforming into a were-bat monster. Something similar happened to his wife Francine, who became the She-Bat.
  • The inhabitants of the Wild Land in Superboy (1994), who are basically the mainstream universe's counterparts to Kamandi's animal people, are eventually revealed to be born from a top-secret genetic research firm called Project Moreau, which informally named their creations "furries".
• The titular Elephantmen are human-animal hybrids based on African wildlife (elephants, rhinos, zebras, hippos, crocodiles, giraffes, hyenas), created as Super Soldiers on behalf of the nations of Northern Africa. The series takes place in the aftermath of a war between said African nations and China, with each side using their own hybrid soldiers — most of the main characters are Elephantmen trying to integrate into society despite the Fantastic Racism against them.
• Finder has a number of humanized animals who were either uplifted by humans or created directly as servants. The ones who get most exploration are the Nyima, uplifted humanoid lions who retain something close to natural lions' social arrangements, with females running society and a single elite male providing sperm to them.
• Marvel Universe:
  • There are several instances of humans being transformed into animal hybrids through science; like Morbius (a scientist who accidentally combined himself with vampire bat DNA^note though he turned into a mostly human-looking "living vampire"), the Lizard (a scientist who gave himself lizard DNA), Vermin (a homeless man given rat DNA by a Mad Scientist), and Tiger Shark (an athlete given tiger shark DNA by a Mad Scientist, who himself would later return having spliced himself with starfish DNA and using fish-human hybrids as minions).
  • Rocket Raccoon, like many other inhabitants of Halfworld, his home planet, was granted sapience and given a roughly humanoid form by extensive cybernetic and genetic augmentation.
  • The Incredible Hulk had a couple of run-ins with a satyr-like creature called the Woodgod, who had been genetically engineered by a scientist couple that were later killed defending their creation from an angry mob. The Woodgod later returns, having used the research of his "parents" to make others like him, a race of animal-people he calls the Changelings.
  • The Ani-Mates that the New Mutants meet are a much more sinister example, having been created by a sadistic, deranged creep of a geneticist named the Ani-Mator, who regularly abused his experiments.
  • The New Men are a race of animals "evolved" into humanoid form by their master, the High Evolutionary. While some of them, like Sir Porga, are able to pass for human, many others retain bestial features. In contrast to many other examples, the High Evolutionary is actually rather benevolent (sometimes) and treats his creations with respect.
• The Blood (later known as Bar Sinister) from Shaman's Tears were artificially created human/animal hybrids; each designed to have specific traits from the animal side (wings on the bat hybrid, Prehensile Tail and feet on the monkey hybrid, et cetera). The evil corporation that created them felt justified in treating them as possessions as they had a court ruling stating that they weren't human — merely a higher form of animal — and therefore do not have human rights.
• Many of the mutants from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise are human-animal hybrids created through exposure to Mutagenic Goo. Some of them were born as ordinary animals (like the titular Ninja Turtles), while others were born as humans (like their sensei Splinter, at least in some continuities).

Fan Works

• Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space: Gneelix is a chimera (half-man, half-Siberian husky) created by xenograft surgery to settle the harsh polar regions, though he needs a vocalizer-collar to translate his growls and tiny muscular throat movements into speech.
  "I'm not afraid! I have the heart of a lion and the ferocity of a tiger! I'd have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox too, but Doctor Moreau was arrested before he could perform the operation."

Films — Animation

• Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature has (of course) Bagi, a cougar with implanted human DNA and the only one of fifteen genetic prototypes not hunted down and killed after Escaping from the Lab.

Films — Live-Action

• The villain of The Amazing Spider-Man, the Lizard, is a scientist who has been transformed into a reptile-man through a serum that uses lizard DNA to re-grow limbs and human tissue. Incidentally, the same genetic technology was used to create the transgenic spider that gave Peter Parker his spider powers.
• Though The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) is set in the period when the book was written, it updates the methods Moreau uses to create his animal-people, replacing the surgical method of the original novel with a combination of surgery and gene therapy. Moreau also attempts to change the shipwrecked protagonist into an animal in a reversal of his usual methods, which results in yet another Beast Man.
• The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), being a Setting Update to the modern day, has Dr. Moreau use genetic engineering to give animals human traits. In a further departure from the novel, though most of the Beast-Men were originally animals, one of the females gives birth to a hybrid baby, showing that Moreau's modifications breed true.
• Island of Lost Souls, being an adaptation of The Island of Doctor Moreau, naturally has this as its premise. As in the novel, the Beast-Men are created by surgically modifying animals into human form, and most of them are too animalistic to pass for human. In a departure from the source material, Moreau succeeds in making an almost entirely human Panther Woman, Lota. Moreau's motivations are also changed; not content to merely make humans out of animals, Moreau now wants to see if his creations can breed with humans.
• The 1994 film Moonchild is about the "Moonchild Project", a gene splicing program that mixes human and animal cells to create a new species of Super Soldiers. The protagonist is their first experiment, a human-wolf hybrid who can shapeshift into a werewolf.
• Shin Kazamatsuri from Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue is "fondly" remembered as the first and only Kamen Rider that isn't really masked nor a rider, but instead a Humanoid Abomination who takes the bug-themed leanings of the Showa-era Kamen Riders to it's logical conclusion. The poor lad was experimented on by his father Dr. Kazmatsuri and his partner Dr. Onizuka, but was unknowingly gene-spliced with Grasshopper DNA. Allowing him to turn into a Grasshopper-monster, with a henshin that's just pure Body Horror and poor Shin is clearly in pain throughout the whole Transformation Sequence.
• Terror Is A Man is a film from the Philippines unofficially based off of The Island of Doctor Moreau, substituting the novel's menagerie of Beast-Men for a single panther-man created via surgery.
• The Twilight People is another unofficial adaptation of The Island of Doctor Moreau, again from the Philippines, with Moreau trying to make a "super race" by combining humans and animals and wanting to experiment on a kidnapped diver, much to his daughter's consternation.

Literature

• In All Tomorrows, some of the post-human species engineered by the Qu fall into this territory. While they are all technically human, they bear an uncanny resemblance to other Earth mammals, especially the elephant-like Titans, the bat-like Pterosapiens, the dolphin-like Tool Breeders, and the antelope-like Mantelopes.
• The ani-droids from Argo and Ani-Droids are an unusual example, as they are robots rather than biological creatures. However, they otherwise fit this trope, as they are designed to be anthropomorphs so they can be cute instead of threatening to humans who would otherwise be uncomfortable with them.
• In the Children of Steel series, a group of genetically-engineered "animorphs" are created by major corporations as indentured servants for humanity's exosolar colonies.
• Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind series, set in the distant future, features a servant class called the Underpeople, who are animals engineered to have human intelligence and a more humanoid form.
• The Island of Doctor Moreau, which inspired quite a few of the other examples here, does not actually play this trope straight. While Moreau's "manimals" are indeed animals given human attributes through science, Moreau is not interested in merely making an anthropomorphic animal; no, his true goal is to essentially transform an animal into a human through surgery. The manimals are just a stepping stone to this achievement, and even the most human-like of them retain a few animal characteristics and are extremely off-putting.
• The titular character of Maximum Ride and the rest of her Flock are human children spliced with bird DNA, which give them all wings and various superpowers. Their enemies, the Erasers, are artificially created wolf-human hybrids... who also have wings.
• The titular "Moreaus" from the Moreau Series are genetically-engineered anthropomorphic animals created as Super Soldiers who are now treated as second-class citizens.
• Next (2006) has a few transgenic animal/human hybrids in its cast of characters, including Dave, the son of a researcher who manipulated his DNA and a chimpanzee's donated cells.
• The Pelted from Paradox were created by splicing genes from various animals into human genomes, technically making them a Human Subspecies (they share 99% of their genome with humans and are capable of interbreeding with them). They were originally designed as servants to humanity but after a number of demands for rights (and a scandal or two where a billionaire got knocked up by her "pet") they left Earth, then returned centuries later to invite humans into their Alliance.
• The titular Parahumans from The Pride of Parahumans (and its sequel series Para Imperium) were created as Asteroid Miners after humans wouldn't sign all the legal waivers. Grown from a blend of human and animal genes and printed over a titanium-alloy skeleton in a vat rather than born, they were designed from the cells up for life in space.
• The plot of Sandpaper Kiss revolves around a group of human-animal hybrids being created in a lab. Their hybrid anatomy makes them prone to disabilities — Lucy, a human-tiger hybrid, is unable to speak English properly thanks to her feline lips.
• In Sea of the Patchwork Cats, a shady black market business kidnaps junkies, strippers, prostitutes and other people who won't be missed or remembered. There they are mutated with animal DNA and have their memories altered for rich men who want exotic sex slaves for themselves.
• Calatians in The Tower and the Fox are a fantasy version created by English sorcerers during the Renaissance as a source of magically-infused blood that wasn't other sorcerers. It's unknown how they were created save that it was a "Great Work" on par with the creation of a land bridge between Britain and North America. Until the fourth book, when they figure out that it was a mass uplift of assorted animals at the cost of the caster's life.
• The trollocs in The Wheel of Time are an unconventional example, insofar as they come from a fantasy setting. They were engineered by the amoral biologist Aginor as shock troops for the forces of evil, and all generally look like 8-foot tall, over-muscled humans with the features of various vicious animals, such as bears, lions, hawks et cetera, mixed in. Despite their varied appearance, they all seem to have the same brutish and simplistic instincts.
• In Witches Abroad, the evil Godmother transforms a wolf into a tragic wolf/human hybrid, capable of pretending unconvincingly to be someone's grandmother, simply because that's how the story goes. (Animals transformed into humans start thinking a bit like humans, but still have their own nature beneath it; the wolf, on the other hand, doesn't know what it is.)
• Taura from the Vorkosigan Saga, who's an eight-foot-tall genetically modified Super-Soldier who is only half jokingly described as a "werewolf." Despite her appearance, she's highly intelligent and not particularly bestial in personality at all.

Live-Action TV

• The X5 series of Transgenics from Dark Angel were genetically engineered humans designed to be Super Soldiers for the US government, and many are given animal genes for that purpose. Main character Max is genetically engineered with cat genes (and thus has a mating cycle) but looks entirely human, while other Transgenics like Joshua (a human/dog hybrid and the first Transgenic developed) and Mole (a human/lizard hybrid) look much more animalistic.
• In the Doctor Who two-parter "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks", the Daleks turn their captive humans into human-pig hybrids and use them for manual labor.
• The Mighty Boosh: In the episode "Mutants", Dixon Bainbridge becomes a Mad Scientist and kidnaps humans and zoo animals to splice them together, creating humans-animal hybrids in a quest to become a God. They're referred to as mutants and the exact Applied Phlebotinum involved is not specified, though Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks are involved.

Tabletop Games

• After the Bomb: As a Post Apocalyptic spin-off to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, it takes place in a world where the dominant lifeforms are animals that have evolved into varying degrees of human intelligence and appearance. The 2nd edition of the game, which more fully develops itself without tying back to TMNT, establishes that humans were already experimenting in modifying and uplifting animals into human-like forms before the apocalypse, but the widespread rise of the mutant animals is due to the bio-engineered gene-modding virus that destroyed the world. These "Pre-Crash" examples of the trope are the Chimera strains and the Pleasure Bunny race:
  • Spider-Goats are the descendants of experiments from the 1990s in splicing spider genes into goats to create a docile herd animal that could produce large quantities of spider silk. After the Crash, enough of them survived to become a true-breeding race, which resemble a bizarre combination of a humanoid goat and a humanoid spider, often possessing multiple limbs and/or eyes. Though they tend to be friendly and easy-going, the Empire of Humanity finds them absolutely repulsive and is determined to wipe them out.
  • Pleasure Bunnies were bio-engineered from lab rabbit DNA as a race of sex-slaves prior to the Crash. They are universally drop-dead gorgeous and almost impossible to tell from regular humans (unless they take the optional disadvantage of retaining rabbit ears and/or tails) save for their extremely pale skin, white hair, and pink eyes. Their most unique power is their pheromones, which endow them with the ability to manipulate the emotional states of others and even turn the Pleasure Bunny into a living Fantastic Drug.
  • Chameleon Mice descended from early experiments in modifying the genes of mice for various skin-related experiments, such as producing bioluminescence or having transparent skin. Their descendants resemble small, totally hairless, pink-skinned humans who can generate light from their skin, blend into their background like a Hollywood chameleon, or become partially invisible.
  • Shifter Mice are the mutant descendants of mice that were originally bred as a way to artificially enginered "Shifter-Cells", which were basically "gene patches" for ease of genetic splicing. The modern Shifter Mouse is able to transform into a near-perfect genetic duplicate of another person by consuming a drop of their blood.
  • Porkopolis Flying Pigs descend from a vanity project conducted in pre-Crash Cincinnti, Ohio, where pigs were spliced with bird DNA to create winged, flight-capable pigs and thus bring the city's mascots to life. After the Crash, those flying pigs evolved into humanoids, just like most other animals.
  • Mention is made briefly of an elephant subrace called the Ganeshi, defined by their third eye and innate Psychic Powers, that now rules over a sizable swathe of the Indian subcontinent.
• BattleTech: The Magistracy of Canopus is known to have catgirls, mermaids, and a few other human-animal hybrid types, all of which are the result of humans getting voluntary surgical modifications and cybernetic implants. Extreme body modification is not frowned upon there and such people are quite common in the traveling pleasure circuses.
• The "Moreaus" (genetically-engineered human/animal hybrids) in d20 Modern's Genetech campaign.
• GURPS:
  • Felicia-class bioroids from Transhuman Space are nanite-assembled cat people originally designed as Super Soldiers and bodyguards, with a version developed after the ban on weaponized bioroids intended more as pilots. While the Felecias are the most common and standardised version, there are also bioroids that resemble other any other kind of animal-person that someone's prepared to pay for.
  • The Tek-Rat in GURPS Bio-Tech is a genetically engineered creature that resembles a small rodent with the intelligence and dexterity required to be a starship engineer.
  • Some of the campaign suggestions in GURPS Furries have furries as human creations, and some of the templates are designed with this in mind.
• Vectors in Hc Svnt Dracones are several species of human-animal hybrid created by MarsCo shortly before Earth nuked itself in the corporate wars and used to repopulate the solar system.
• 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness'', being inspired by the original TMNT comics, takes place in a world where science has produced mutagenic compounds that can evolve animals into people, or devolve humans into animals.

Video Games

• The Therian NPC faction from Age of Wonders: Planetfall were once humans before they were experimented on with animal DNA and became animal-human hybrids. They were used in experiments to cure diseases and create superior beings until their first test subject, known as "The Deer", exposed the horrible truth of the experiments. Since the shutdown of these horrid projects, they occupied many planets as refugees, belonging to neither human nor animals and are no longer welcome in society, yet remain positive on life.
• The Kaka clan in BlazBlue are a race of Beastkin, humanoid animals, that were artificially engineered from the genes of Jubei during the Dark War.
• In Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, as part of the backstory, American scientists were researching genetic modification in order to create Super Soldiers in case a cold war with China turned hot. Some scientists developed Super Serums that grant animal traits, although the Cataclysm prevented widespread usage of them. If you find or recreate the right kind of mutagens, you can become an example of this trope, although it's very risky.
• The majority of the cast in the Crash Bandicoot series are this, being once normal animals that were forcibly uplifted by a pair of Mad Scientists to serve as their foot soldiers in taking over the world.
• In the Dungeon Siege expansion Legends of Aranna, the Utraeans had used their magic and scientific knowledge to uplift common lizards and cats into humanoids to be able to serve their empire as slaves. This eventually bites them in the ass as they rise in violent rebellion, all but destroying the once-mighty Utraean Empire. The Zaurask leader even tries to create his own army of uplifted soldiers from crocdiles, though even they quickly rebelled and formed their own society.
• Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan: The Sentinels are humanoid animals that were created by humans as part of the Yggdrasil Project to help restore Earth after a world-ending calamity.
• Inherit the Earth takes place in a seemingly medieval world populated by sentient bipedal animals whose ancestors were uplifted by humanity before a disaster wiped them out. The opening narration states that humans gave them "reaching hands" as well as "thinking minds", and the introductory cinematic shows cave paintings of humanoid animals, so it's likely that they were designed to be humanoid rather than being typical Uplifted Animals.
• The Caninu and Felineko of the Little Tail Bronx universe came into existence after the Juno information system erased humanity and terraformed the Earth to purify it of their war. The Juno then used the data of all other living organisms to re-seed the planet with new life, eventually mixing in cats and dogs with the human genome through a process of rapid evolution. A piece of supplementary material for Solatorobo: Red the Hunter explains why cats and dogs were specifically chosen as humanity's successors: Yurlungur, the personality AI that was birthed from Australia's Juno so that it could interact with humans, not only valued the two species for their adaptability to different environments, but the research team she interacted with also took care of some cats and dogs as a way to manage their mental health, which she interpreted as an act of love on their behalf.
• The Stalkers from Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden are half-human, half-animal Mutants who are eventually revealed to be created as part of Mimir's "Mutant Project" before the apocalypse, intended to grow animal-like humanoids for unknown purposes.
• Utawarerumono: It's implied that the various Little Bit Beastly races populating the planet actually descend from a vast series of genetic experimentation projects that were undertaken in a hidden underground lab, apparently as part of a project to reclaim the uninhabitable Earth above.
• The bestial enemies in Vivisector: Beast Within are human-animal hybrids created as soldiers by the renegade geneticist Dr. Morhead.
• Xenogears contains a race of Beast Men called Demihumans, which are revealed to be the result of humanity messing with Nanomachines in the past after Bishop Stone collects the nanomechanical colony Emeralda in the Zeboim ruins.

Webcomics

• The Ferin of Aurora (2019) are a fantasy variant of this trope, created by a mysterious mage who would curse people into half-animal beings with enhanced strength and healing abilities but no magic for the slightest reasons. They were treated as monsters at first until people realized they were victims and started treating them better... that is, until they discovered they could have children that would also be Ferin and they were driven out of human settlements due to being seen as an existential threat. They are treated somewhat better now but there is still heavy discrimination, especially for predator Ferin. There are three main types of Ferin with different characteristics:
  • The Unstable Ferin, which were created by the mage when they were less skilled and will shift between a human and animalistic form at random and are viewed as the most dangerous type due to their volatile emotions.
  • The Shifter Ferin, which can voluntarily change from a fully animal form and non-Ferin form which only slight hints to their true natures and are viewed with paranoia as a result.
  • Finally, there are the Hybrid Ferin, which were made when the mage had perfected their curse and appear partially human with animal traits and are the strongest and most resilient of the three.
• The backstory of The Cyantian Chronicles has the titular Cyantians being created from human and animal DNA by aliens as a Servant Race, and then further modified by another alien race to be superpowered pit fighters.
• The protagonists of DNA are a group of genetically engineered furry humanoid children, known as Species X, most of which have super powers. They are considered experiments rather than people.
• Florence Ambrose, the protagonist of Freefall, is a Bowman's Wolf, part of an experimental breed of red wolves genetically engineered to have humanoid form. They were created as a proof-of-concept for the uplifting of native life on planets inhospitable to Earth life. Technically, the first animals given human traits through genetic engineering in the setting were an army of chimp Super Soldiers, but they were more traditional Uplifted Animals with minimal anatomical modifications, as evidenced by Dr. Bowman.
• The Tarnekis in The Kenny Chronicles are anthropomorphic animals created by pirate scientists for unknown reasons.
• The hybrids from My Life With Fel (link here) are comprised of a human base spliced with animal DNA, and were secretly developed by governments such as Hedron (the fictional setting of the story), the United States and China with the purpose of creating super-soldiers with specialized abilities. However, following the election of a new government to Hedron, one which realized that this project was a massive breach of human rights (indoctrination of humans from birth against their will) and international law (human experimentation without consent or protection), the project was ordered to be scrapped for the sake of preventing a potential PR nightmare, and most of the hybrids were gunned down by the military barring a few dozen that escaped and survived prior to the beginning of the story. Of particular note is that all the successful hybrids are female, as the augmentation process previously messed with testosterone and made any male hybrids especially violent and unreasonable by comparison.
• The House of Evolution from One-Punch Man is a villainous organization consisting of the Evilutionary Biologist Dr. Genus and his genetically spliced mutant monstrosities, Mosquito Girl being one.

Web Original

• The eponymous Fox Tayle from The Adventures of Fox Tayle used to be a normal fox, until he was experimented on by "Project Plume", an initiative run by the shady BioCon group and funded by the U.S. government to transform animals into lethal soldiers. Now not only is he intelligent and sapient, he can also walk upright and has hand-like paws, essentially making him a Funny Animal.
• In addition to provolves, Orion's Arm has rianths, humans modified with animal genes, and splices, animals modified with human genes. By the 107th century AT the distinction is very blurry and more memetic than genetic, with some splice clades having more human genes than some rianth clades.
• Space Beasts has the Humanimals, who were created by humans to serve as slaves. The Humanimals all have mostly human forms and animalistic heads, since the scientists who created them nixed the idea of genetically engineering animals to be mostly or entirely indistinguishable from humans — after all, if the Humanimals looked too human, they would be accepted as such. They're still pretty humanlike, to the point of being able to interbreed with humans.
• The Animen from Whateley Universe, who are a genetically engineered, anthropomorphic race of human/animal hybrids originally created as a breeding population for future Super Soldiers.

Western Animation

• Batman cartoons (aside from the DCAU):
  • Kirk Langstrom appears in The Batman, becoming the monstrous Man-Bat in order to be feared like the Batman. In a later episode, a group of three disgruntled college students steal Langstrom's mutagen and splice their genes with fox, shark and vulture DNA, becoming the animalistic Terrible Trio to wreak havoc on their campus, which motivates Langstrom's Heel–Face Turn.
  • Man-Bat also appears in Beware the Batman. Unlike most versions of the character, Kirk Langstrom wasn't responsible for his own transformation, which was caused by Professor Pyg and Mr. Toad injecting him with a mutagenic serum before enslaving him with a Mind-Control Device. Pyg and Toad also plot to use this serum to create an army of human-animal hybrids, even kidnapping a few random women so that Mr. Toad (who's a humanoid frog) can choose to turn one of them into his bride (though this plan is foiled just before Pyg was about to inject "Mrs. Toad").
• The DC Animated Universe features multiple examples of mad scientists creating human-animal hybrids (or turning people into them) through genetic splicing:
  • Batman: The Animated Series:
    • The pilot episode "On Leather Wings" has Man-Bat as its antagonist, the result of Dr. Kirk Langstrom becoming addicted to a formula for turning people into human-bat hybrids. Unlike with most examples, Langstrom can turn from human to Man-Bat and back, essentially making him a werebat. Later in "Terror in the Sky", Kirk's wife Francine accidentally mutates herself with the Man-Bat formula, causing her to repeatedly and involuntarily transform into a similar werebat monster.
    • "Tyger, Tyger" has Dr. Emile Dorian as the antagonist, a geneticist who uses his talents to create various human-animal hybrids, including the ape-man Garth and the cat-man Tygrus. He even goes so far as to turn Catwoman into a literal cat-woman, intending her to be a mate for Tygrus.
    • "Moon of the Wolf" has an example similar to Man-Bat, with the athlete Anthony Romulus becoming a werewolf after Professor Milo gives him a steroid derivative based on wolf estrogen.
  • Batman Beyond:
    • "Splicers" has its antagonist Dr. Abel Cuvier running a for-profit splicing clinic, injecting people with animal DNA. When political pressure from anti-splicing activists threatens to criminalize his business, he reacts by sending three of his mutated minions to try killing Gotham's district attorney. When Batman intervenes, Cuvier splices him with bat DNA, which temporarily turns him into a Man-Bat-like monster.
    • "Curse of the Kobra" features the reptile-worshiping Kobra cult, with many of their members having spliced themselves with snake DNA. Their leader Zander and a few of his henchmen turn themselves into human-dinosaur hybrids before they try to Take Over the World, and Zander even attempts to have Max spliced against her will to serve as his mate (though Batman stops them before they could do so).
    • In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, one of the Jokerz gang members working for the Joker is a hyena splicer named Woof.
  • Justice League has the recurring minor villain Cheetah, who in this universe was a geneticist who spliced herself with feline DNA.
• The Mutates in Gargoyles are a group of formerly-human test subjects that were genetically altered by Dr. Sevarius in experiments to create gargoyle-like beings for Xanatos. They were all spliced with bat, cat and electric eel DNA, thus mutating them into winged cat-people with electrical powers as a result. This technology is later used to transform Wolf of the Pack into a literal Wolf Man.
• One episode of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero has Cobra create a formula to transform people into animal hybrids to use as soldiers. Just one bite of normal meat changes them back, however.
• The Johnny Bravo episode "The Island of Mrs. Morceau" (obviously spoofing The Island of Doctor Moreau) has Johnny Bravo being tricked into visiting Dr. Morceau's island laboratory, where she uses him as another test subject in her experiments to turn people into human-animal hybrids. Johnny himself is turned into a hamster-man.
• The Road Rovers are a group of stray dogs who have been given humanoid form by a mysterious scientist who calls himself "The Master" to fight crime. Unusually, the Road Rovers are able to change from their anthropomorphic forms into regular dogs (through the use of the Master's technology), allowing them to have Secret Identities as the pets of various world dignitaries.
• Dr. Kamikaze's usual M.O. to try and catch the titular Robotboy is to use his super science know-how to create powerful animal-like monsters, sometimes making them from scratch or just uplifting his pet animals. One standout event is when he stole Gus' DNA to create animal hybrids with it, due to his Too Dumb to Live tendencies making him the perfect person to create fearless and reckless soldiers out of.
• The Simpsons: In the last segment of "Treehouse of Horror XIII" ("The Island of Doctor Hibbert", obviously spoofing The Island of Doctor Moreau), the Simpson family go on vacation to a remote island, where Dr. Hibbert (who now lives there) has become a Mad Scientist obsessed with genetic engineering. Hibbert turns the Simpsons (along with many other recurring citizens of Springfield) into a wide variety of human-animal hybrids, some more animalistic than others.
• The Street Sharks are four teenage boys transformed into anthropomorphic sharks by the Mad Scientist Dr. Paradigm through "gene slamming". Paradigm's goal is to mutate everyone into Fish People.

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