They just don't trust what they can't explain
I know we're different, but deep inside us
We're not that different at all
Even in settings where talking, civilized, or funny animals exist, adoptions will still happen between parents and children. Some parents are caring enough to take in a child, regardless of their species. They may be animals raising a human child, humans raising an animal child, animals raising animals of a different species, or any combination of the three. It doesn't matter, as adoption is still adoption, and parents will always be parents. The subject of the adoption may or may not even be an issue among society. Heck, if the child in question had a less-than-ideal home life, then being adopted is a better option no matter what their new parents are.
Super-Trope to:
- Orc Raised by Elves
- Raised by Humans
- Raised by Orcs
- Raised by Robots
- Raised by the Supernatural
- Raised by Wolves
It may also overlap with Moses in the Bulrushes and (especially in comic settings) Oblivious Adoption. Contrast Random Species Offspring when the child isn't just adopted — it's biological. In works where both the species are sapient, such adoptions are frequently allegories for real-life interracial adoption, as in both situations the adopted characters will have to deal with the physical and often cultural differences between them and the rest of their family. May result in Small Parent, Huge Child as well as Big Little Brother (for those cases where there are also biological kids in the family). In the cases where the adoption closely parallels real-life interracial adoption, see also Interracial Adoption Struggles.
There are numerous cases of this happening in real life among different animal species, even among animals that would normally eat one another. There are also many accounts, though few if any verified, of children while lost in the wilderness being protected or even raised by animals. Also given that humans are technically animals as well, raising pets also counts.
Examples
- Orangina: One advertisement
set in the campaign's Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My! setting features a deer mother and her two human children, who eat without using hands like wild deer.
- Azumanga Daioh: Sakaki, a human girl, informally adopts a baby Iriomote wildcat after he imprints on her and travels from Iriomote island to mainland Japan to reunite with her. She names him Mayaa. While this normally would just be Pet Baby Wild Animal, this occurred after Mayaa's mother died in a car accident, and as a result, Sakaki believes that he now sees her as his mother.
- Black Clover: Licita, a human woman, took in and raised Liebe, a devil, because as a devil with no magic, he was impervious to her body's condition that absorbed the magic and life of living things.
- Delicious in Dungeon:
- Though not directly mentioned in the series, Ryoko Kui's artbook reveals that the human twins Kiki and Kaka are this. The elderly gnome couple, Mr. and Mrs. Tansu, aren't their employers — they're the twins' parents, who raised them from infancy after they were abandoned by their birth family.
- Milsiril, a retired veteran of the elves' Canary corps, has a habit of adopting children from the short-lived races since she doesn't like the company of other elves. Some accuse her of seeing her many children as pets more than people; Kabru, who was one such child, certainly felt she was My Beloved Smother.
- Dragon Ball: Before the series began Son Goku was a little boy with a monkey's tail adopted by the human Son Gohan. It is then revealed by Goku's evil brother Raditz years later that they are extraterrestrial humanoids called Saiyans, making this formerly Oblivious Adoption.
- Fairy Tail:
- Natsu Dragneel was raised by a Fire Dragon named Igneel, who taught him how to read and write as well as to use Fire Dragon Slayer Magic. Five other Dragon Slayers, Gajeel, Wendy, Sting, and Rogue were also raised by Dragon Parents.
- Happy and other Exceeds sent to Earthland were taken in and raised by human caretakers.
- The Fox & Little Tanuki: An evil fox called Senzou is offered a chance at redemption by the Sun Goddess, in the form of putting him in charge of raising a tanuki pup called Manpachi to become a proper servant of the gods. They live together with a good female fox called Koyuki who also takes part in caring for Manpachi. Senzou is pretty bitter about the arrangement at first, but he comes to care for Manpachi because they were both rejected by their biological parents. However, Senzou had nobody to care for him.
- Jewelpet Kira☆Deco!: Episode 28 is about Rald, a panda, having adopted Luna, a rabbit. note
- Lyrical Nanoha has quite a bit of this with the sheer number of adoptions, although it can be hard to tell due to most of the cast being Human Aliens:
- Vivio (Belka) was adopted by Nanoha (Earth) and Fate (Mid-Childa).
- Fate was adopted by Lindy (Firstraum in the Movie continuity).
- Erio (Unnamed homeworld) and Caro (Alzus) were both adopted by Fate (though Lindy's name is on the paperwork for Erio due to Fate's age).
- Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms: Maquia, who's from a race of immortals, adopts Ariel, a human boy.
- Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid:
- Kobayashi acts as a foster mother for both Kanna and Ilulu, two dragons who have a strained relationship with their parents and are orphaned respectively. In Kanna's case, she even uses Kobayashi's surname as part of her human identity.
- The Ceremony of Power arc also features Rindo, a dragon friend of Tohru who had taken in a human girl (originally offered to him as a sacrifice) Said girl has long since died of old age by the present day, and he wants to break up Tohru and Kobayashi so she won't have to go through the same pain of loss that he did.
- One Piece:
- Chopper is an anthropomorphic reindeer who was raised first by Hiriluk, then by Kureha, both of whom are humans.
- Franky and Iceburg are humans who were raised by Tom, a fishman.
- Following the deaths of her parents, Hiyori was raised by the Kappa fishman Kawamatsu from age six to thirteen.
- Pokémon the Series
- In the Sun and Moon anime, Litten has a parental figure in a very old Stoutland. The Stoutland later passes away, leading to Litten to choose Ash as its trainer.
- Ash's Rowlet was hatched and raised in a flock of Pikipek, Trumbeak, and Toucannon.
- In the first episode of Journeys, it's shown through a flashback that Ash's Pikachu himself was adopted by a Kangaskhan when he was a very young Pichu and stayed with her until shortly before he evolved into Pikachu.
- In Transformers Victory, Star Saber, the new leader of the Autobots, adopts a human boy named Jean, who lost his parents to a Decepticon attack.
- Umamusume: Pretty Derby: Horse girl Special Week's biological mother died after she was born, so she was raised by her human friend.
- In Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun, the demon Sullivan adopts the human Iruma after his Abusive Parents sell him, referring to him as his grandson.
- In King Shakir, Remzi, a lion, has a turtle named Peyami for an adoptive father.
- Beasts of Burden has Ace and his dog pack adopt a teenage human boy... it doesn't last long as the boy turns out to be a werewolf and is shot by a silver bullet.
- Elma: A Bear's Life: The titular character is a human girl who was raised for the first seven years of her life by a bear.
- Green Lantern: Green Lantern Corps member Bynai Bruun is a Zymian who ended up adopting the newborn son of her Glazzonion predecessor Ahtier, who died shortly after giving birth.
- In Havoc Inc, Chester (ringtail cat) and Deck (canid) adopt a mouse girl.
- Hellboy is a demon who was adopted by a human parent named Dr. Bruttenholm and raised under the watch of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. He was raised to appreciate humanity, even if he constantly has to deal with the fact that he's frighteningly different from them anyway.
- The Mighty Thor: Asgardians Volstagg and his wife Hildegund adopt two Midgardian (Human) sons after their mother is killed by Zaniac (their Disappeared Dad either already died or left the family).
- Red Tornado, an android, has an adopted human daughter named Traya.
- In the Star Wars Expanded Universe Legacy series, all three of Nat Skywalker's children count. First of all, his wife is a Kiffar, and Nat adopted her daughter Ahnah; secondly, said wife adopted Skeeto, a human child, along with Nat; and finally, the pair adopted Micah, a Cathar.
- Superman:
- Superman is probably the most famous example. He's an alien sent to Earth as a baby, and he grew up on a farm by the Kent family.
- His cousin Supergirl is adopted by humans, too. Usually the Danvers or Lana Lang.
- In Last Son, Lois Lane and Clark become the foster parents of Chris, another Kryptonian child.
- Many Superman Substitutes:
- Icon, with the twist that he looks like a black man, crashed in the antebellum period and was raised as a slave.
- Hyperion in Supreme Power was found by a nice farm couple...and then taken in by the U.S. government, who raised him to be blindly obedient. It went badly.
- In Irredeemable, the Plutonian was sent by aliens trying to study humans and transformed to look like a human child. Unfortunately, he wound up bouncing around foster care for years and scared everybody with his powers.
- PS238 has a very standard "raised by a farmer" story for Atlas, though there is a twist as to why.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Four adorable baby turtles fall into a sewer and are adopted by an ordinary rat (other than the whole "knows ninjutsu" thing). Only later do the five mutate and become intelligent. In most adaptations this is Played With, however, as Splinter starts out as a human before mutating into a rat-man, and it's his human DNA that the turtles are mutated with, making them biologically related.
- Empyre ends with Ben Grimm and Alicia receiving custody of Jo-Venn and N'Kalla, Kree and Skrull children the Fantastic Four rescued.
- Voyagis: Sen is raised by Zai after the rest of her species, Nau, were exterminated by Primoris.
- This
◊ Bad Habits strip, which is also an Oblivious Adoption, as human parents deciding to tell their dog son he's adopted.
- U.S. Acres featured Orson (a pig) adopting chicks Booker and Sheldon as his sons.
- Medicated: Zig-Zagged. Anne, Sasha, and Marcy (all humans) were raised by frogs, toads, and newts respectively since they were babies, but their adoptive parents gave them potions to turn them into their respective species to make them easier to raise.
- All Assorted Animorphs AUs: In "What if they were in Tortall?", Tobias is a human who was raised by Hork-Bajir.
- Dæmorphing: Mr. Tidwell (a human) and Illim (a Yeerk) adopt Estrid (an Andalite) to show that there can be peace between their three species as part of the end-of-war negotiations.
- Evil Jack
opens with Karbunckle working with Jack McCyber to genetically engineer a five-year-old daughter for Jack and Charley as part of a plan to separate Charley from the Mice. Once the scheme is exposed, Charley's daughter Hannah is swiftly accepted by the Mice as part of their family, with Throttle in particular acting as her father figure to the extent that at one point he notes that if he dies Hannah will receive his bike.
- A Loud Among Demons is a The Loud House/Helluva Boss crossover. This one is where Moxxie and Millie adopted Lincoln Loud when Lincoln gets sent to Hell by a curse. Two imp demons adopted a human child. Overtime, Lincoln see Moxxie and Millie as his demon family and even called them mom and dad.
- Believe in the Weird and Wild: Steven, a half-Gem Half-Human Hybrid, is adopted by the Mewman Butterfly family.
- BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant: Penny Polendina, a Murakumo Unit and Living Weapon, is the adoptive daughter of Pietro Polendina, an ordinary human.
- Boiling Gems: Eda comes from a Mage Species, and she adopts "Lucifer" (Steven), a half-human and half-crystalline alien child.
- The Bridge:
- The first was Azusa Aoki adopting and raising Junior.
- In the expanded "Amalgam-Verse", Tori Wylder, a Glaistig, winds up adopting a Puca named Haley Comet, a Jorogumo named Kumiko Murakumo, and her lone human son, Theodore Wylder.
- The albino hyper gyaos, later named Irys, adopts the "Dark Hunters" group she joins note as her new family after the loss of her flock and they don't object.
- Subverted as Starswirl the Bearded and the founders effectively adopted Celestia and Luna one thousand years ago, as while they are equines, they're alicorns and artificial creations of Harmony.
- Can I Keep Him?: Hiccup was raised (as a dragon) alongside Toothless by the Elder Stormcutter.
- The Equestrian Wind Mage: A key point of the story is Vaati (a Hylian/Minish/Demon thing) adopting Scootaloo (a pony). Both are incredibly happy with this setup.
- First Meetings Universe (Mass Effect/MLP:FiM): Mass Effect: Shepard and the Rainbows starts with a pegasus soldier saving a human girl from pirates and then adopting her. Thus Riley Shepard, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo end up being sisters.
- Future Is Bright (Danny Phantom): Batman, a human, adopts Danny Fenton/Phantom, a half-ghost.
- Harry Tano: Ahsoka (a Togruta) rescues a four-year-old Harry (a human) from the Dursley house. Shortly afterwords, she becomes his adoptive mother, and is recognized by a majority of characters as such.
- If Wishes Were Ponies...:
- Ever since Harry (a human) stumbled onto Equestria 15 months before his first year at Hogwarts Twilight (a pony) has been taking care of him at the suggestion of Princess Celestia and once formal diplomatic relations between Equestria and Muggle Great Britain begin even asked to formally adopt the boy.
- Spike also sees Twilight as his mother and occasionally refers to her as such.
- It's Always Spooky Month: The monster... Monster takes care of Skid and Pump, who are human.
- Kir-Ben 10: Poyo Force: Ben and Julie (both Humans) take Kirby (Star Warrior) in as their son.
- The Last Daughter (Worm and Supergirl): Taylor is a Kryptonian baby who was adopted by two human parents.
- The Lion, the Cat and the Turtles
: Splinter and Aslan each acknowledge that Susan is Aslan's daughter just as the Turtles are Splinter's sons despite the species difference. The term is a little more loose here since Aslan never adopted Susan, but still refers to her as his daughter.
Splinter: Your daughter is human?
Aslan: Your sons are turtles. Yet they are no less your sons. - New Stars: The Orville in canon is no stranger to having strange, rare, and/or unique beings as crew members. So it doesn't truly surprise anyone when CT-5599 (Maxx), a cloned human from another universe, is offered a spot on the ship's crew.
- “Ring of Fire
” (How to Train Your Dragon & The Lord of the Rings) features Hiccup and Toothless discovering Toothless’s long-lost parents and his younger brother, with the group essentially accepting Hiccup as kin for his efforts in getting Toothless back in the air after he lost his original tail-fin (Hiccup and Toothless don’t mention that Hiccup is the reason Toothless was injured in the first place). After Hiccup is able to design a new tail-fin for Toothless that allows him to fly solo, Toothless's parents, each agree that they will essentially consider Hiccup their own cub for everything he has done for Toothless.
- Spider-Ninja (Spider-Verse and TMNT): While Master Splinter (a mutant rat) adopted the Turtles like in canon, here he also found and adopted the orphaned four-year-old Petra Parker. The five teens all acknowledge Splinter as their father and each other as siblings, often going out of their way to protect one another. In the sequel, Leonardo follows his father's example and adopts a four-year-old human (albeit one mutated by the X-factor gene) named Jaime.
- Tarzan: Two Worlds, One Family
is a The Lion King (1994) and Tarzan (1999) AU fic where Tarzan was found and raised by Sarabi instead of Kala.
- Vortexverse: Lava Mole adopts Cole, a rat.
- As Old As Time: Angie Yonaga is the head priestess of Atua and think of herself as his servant, but Atua sees their relationship this way and refers to her as his daughter.
- Vow of Nudity: Lady Angel Ironstein is a half-elf noblewoman who adopts River, a human.
- Imprint
sees Claire Dearing present when the Indominus Rex hatches, resulting in the infant dinosaur imprinting on her as its parent.
- It's not the Raptor DNA: Rexy the Tyrannosaurus Rex has adopted Elise (an Indominus Rex) and Tim (a human, and the same one she terrorized during the events of the first film) as her children.
- Lost Boys Saga has human girl Kairi, who after the destruction of Radiant Garden, ended up in Disney Town and was adopted by Mickey Mouse and Minnie.
- "Kings & Vagabonds
" opens with an adult Simba finding a wounded Banzai and learning that Shenzi died giving birth to her and Banzai's cub after Ed was seemingly killed by Zira. After talking with Banzai about what happened, Simba volunteers to take care of the cub, Janja, with him and Nala raising the young hyena for a time to the extent that they call him their son, although they leave him with Ed when they discover that Ed is actually still alive.
- When Did I Become a Parent?: Like in canon, Timon (a meerkat) and Pumbaa (a warthog) become the guardians of Simba (a lion cub). Later inverted, when King Simba adopts his foster parents into his pride (making them, aside from Zazu, the only non-lions to live at Pride Rock).
- Bite-Sized Minecraft 2: The short clip at 0:44 shows a flock of sheep grazing. Among them is a Creeper, which bleats.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): The baby Manda, who is the Last of His Kind, is parented by at least two Titans whom are both different species from him — Rodan (Titanus Rodan), and Monster X (a fusion of Titanus Ghidorah's left head and a now-transhuman Vivienne Graham).
- Wild Child AU starts in the aftermath of Godzilla's battle with the MUTOs, where he finds seven-year-old Maddie Russell underneath a crashed car when he wakes up two days after the battle. Assuming that her family are already dead and unwilling to cause more damage trying to find other humans to leave her with, Godzilla takes her with him to the island archipelago where he lives, and over time Maddie comes to see Godzilla as a father figure. While she never calls him 'Dad', she starts calling him 'G.' as a compromise when she realises that calling him 'Godzilla' would feel like calling her father by his first name, and comes to consider Mothra a mother figure in turn, with other Titans acknowledging her as Godzilla's "pup".
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- The Ambassador's Son
: After his parents die, Chiphoof the pony is taken in and adopted by Sharptooth the dragon. Notably, dragon magic works in such a way that this makes him a dragon on a spiritual level as well, and he starts to gradually develop draconic traits such as geophagy.
- Anthropology: It is revealed that Lyra was born as a human, but was adopted by a foal-less couple after they found her in the Royal gardens of Canterlot and transformed into a pony foal to let her fit more easily into Equestrian society.
- Diaries of a Madman: Navarone (a human) ends up adopting Taya (a unicorn) as his daughter.
- A Diplomatic Visit: Slice 'n Dice Apple, a pony, was adopted into one of the wolf packs after her birth family were given faulty information by biased ponies and disowned her.
- Echoing Silence: Diadem, a unicorn, is the adoptive daughter of Nereus, a Ki'rin.
- The Flash Sentry Chronicles: This is played with a bit between Flash Sentry, a pegasus, and Springer, a Jakhowl. Early on, Flash finds Springer in the Everfree Forest, saving him from some Timberwolves, and takes him in, with Springer quickly becoming his best friend and partner. At the end of The Forgotten Darkness though, as Springer's origins are finally revealed to everyone, it is discovered that when Flash first found Springer he was only a week or two old at the time, having hatched from his egg at the same time the Elements of Harmony were used to defeat Nightmare Moon. This essentially means that Flash has raised Springer nearly his whole life and taught him everything he knows. This is finally played straight at the end of Jakhowls Rising; when Springer, Ace, and Mira all choose to remain in Aurarora and everyone is saying their tearful goodbyes to them, Twilight Sparkle tells Springer that even though they didn't say it much, he was always a part of their family from the moment Flash found him, with Springer assuring Twilight he knows. The scene plays out similar to an adult moving out of their family home.
- Friendship Is Optimal: The Law Offices of Artemis, Stella & Beat: It's actively being sought by human couple Jeremy and Renee, who can't have biological kids of their own and want to adopt an Equestrian pony.
- The Great Alicorn Hunt: One of the Nobody's Fools is Bowser, an Earth pony colt who was raised by Diamond Dogs. They had adoption papers and everything.
- A Hollow in Equestria: Subverted. Princess Luna proposes invoking this trope for Ulquiorra Cifer's benefit. It's eventually revealed that he turns down the offer, explaining that it would create more problems than it would be worth.
- The Negotiations-verse: Fluttershy (a pony) married a human doctor after the war and together they adopted two human children and one pony foal.
- The Rise of Darth Vulcan: During the raid on Cirrus and Hilltop, one of Vulcan's Diamond Dog mooks decides to adopt an Earth pony foal as her own. Vulcan isn't happy about this, but caves when both dog and foal give him Puppy-Dog Eyes, caving to their combined cuteness.
- Seven Days in Sunny June: Discussed in 7SDJ: A Mother's Duty by Celestia and Twilight Velvet, and explicitly identified as being against the law in Equestria, barring "mitigating and emergent circumstances", which "shall only be considered on a need by need basis". Celestia herself admits that she didn't write the law and should have checked more closely before it was made official; the only reason she hasn't changed it since is because it would be seen as a "gross abuse of the law" and a conflict of interest, since it would have cleared the way for her to adopt Sunset Shimmer, or Twilight Velvet and Night Light (as the parents of her personal student) to adopt Spike.
- Triptych Continuum: It's noted that Griffon culture dictates that no child, regardless of race, will be left behind. In the wake of a war between the griffons and the ponies, the griffons ended up adopting many of the foals they orphaned and brought them back to their homeland. Generations later, the griffon country of Protocera now has a sizable population that are biologically ponies but whom identify as griffons due to having been born and raised in griffon culture.
- Chickenzilla
: Naruto is adopted by a five-foot-tall, fire-breathing chicken (It Makes Sense in Context, sort of).
- Luz Clawthorne: Doubling as Happily Adopted, the basis of the series is that Eda, a witch, adopted Luz, a human, as a baby. Additionally, Vee, a basilisk, is adopted by human cops Blubs and Durland while the Calamity trio (Anne, Sasha, and Marcy) were each adopted by the amphibians who found them (a frog, a toad, and newts, respectively.)
- The Owl House: A Witch Among Us: Esper is a witch who had been raised by two humans named Douglas and Janet.
- "Meanwhile
" affirms that most of Ash’s younger Pokemon have this attitude towards the others; Donphan and Pikachu consider themselves siblings, and Noivern regards Hawlucha as ‘Daddy’ and Ash as a sibling (it’s also suggested that Scraggy considers Ash his father as Bulbasaur initially assumes Noivern is looking for Ash when he asks for ‘Daddy’).
- ky-nim's Nuzlocke Runs: Myths of Unova has the Interspecies Romance couple of Zach (Oshawott) and Laila (Petilil). Since they aren't even in compatible breeding groups, they plan on adopting after they retire from the battle circuit.
- A Petty Nuzlocke Challenge: Because Barb (a Nidoqueen) is sterile, she and Spuds (Venusaur) adopt an egg from a breeder in the Sevii Islands. Spuds Jr. turns out to be a Togepi (who actually hatches directly into Togetic as proof that he's Happily Adopted).
- Pokémon: Roses of the Garden: The Legendary Pokémon adopted a human girl into their family.
- Pokemon: Shadow of Time:
- The Pokémon that Ash hatched from eggs — Phanphy/Donphan, Scraggy, and Noibat/Noivern — all think of Ash as ‘Dad’ rather than as a trainer (also applies to Togepi, but only in the sense that Togepi saw Ash as Misty’s partner rather than seeing him as "Daddy" on his own). Even aside from this, Ash's Pokémon are described as seeing each other as family, such as Noctowl and Pidgeotto briefly fighting because Noctowl sees Pidgeotto as having "betrayed the parliament" before it's explained exactly why Pidgeot never came back, Snivy referring to Ash as her "idiot brother", and Heracross thinking of Phanphy as a brother after retrieving his egg.
- Interestingly turns out to be defied by Rowlett; the Toucannon and Pikipek nest Rowlett lived with before Ash caught him actually was Rowlett's family, as his mother was a Dartrix who left his egg in the nest after spending time with a Trumbeak.
- Three Stars of Veldin: Ratchet is a Lombax, Vendra and Neftin are Nethers, and Wendell Lumos is a reptilian kind of alien, and yet the Nether siblings were quick to call Ratchet their brother upon his kind approach to them in their first meeting followed eventually by Wendell formally adopting the trio as his grandchildren to help settle legal issues.
- Family Loading... Please Wait: Tom and Maddie (a human couple) willingly adopt Sonic (a blue alien hedgehog), Tails (an alien fox with two tails), and Knuckles (a red alien echidna). Later in the series, it's heavily implied that Stone will adopt Shadow.
- Single Parents Night is a Sonic the Hedgehog AU that contains a lot of this. Sonic (hedgehog) adopted Tails (fox), Blaze (cat) adopted Marine (raccoon), Amy (hedgehog) adopted Cream (rabbit), Knuckles (echidna) adopted Silver (hedgehog), and Rouge (bat) adopted Omega (robot). The exception is Shadow, whose daughter Maria is both a hedgehog like him and is biologically his.
Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
- Sonic Comics Rewrite: One Change can mean a new chance: In the backstory, Snively (or Colin, as he is called in the story) was abandoned by his family when he was two, then adopted and raised by Sir Charles Hedgehog.
- The Star Wars fic “Desert Species
” opens with Obi-Wan Kenobi dying of injuries from the duel on Mustafar, with the result that Ahsoka Tano takes responsibility for raising Luke and Leia herself. While she defines herself as their aunt once they’re old enough to understand, the two clearly see Ahsoka as their mother, to the extent that Leia was disappointed that she wouldn’t have lekku like Ahsoka.
- Hellsister Trilogy: Supergirl is adopted by Fred and Edna Danvers, a human couple.
- Kara of Rokyn: The Danvers, a human couple, not only adopt an alien teen girl but also her clone.
- Mario & Luigi: The two human heroes were adopted by Toads.
- The Sea Shadow: Bobbery, a bob-omb, has adopted Vivian, who is a Living Shadow.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)
- Shards of a Memory: Much like canon!Splinter, Master Shard (who is a cat-mutant) is the official mother to the Turtles.
- Turtle Kittens: Like the above example, Tang Shen (turned into the cat-mutant Master Aspen) adopted the four Turtles. After the Kraang invade New York, she also takes in August O'Neil, Casey Jones, and former Purple Dragon Lazuli.
- Just this once (everybody lives): Immortal humans Jack and Ianto occasionally adopt children, not all of them human. And the stars are on your side shows that they adopted and raised a Pegasinian and Phaethidae child.
- Gensokyo 20XX:
- This is recurrent, with Reimu, Renko, and Maribel (formerly human) being adopted by Yukari (a reality-warping yokai) and Chen (Nekomata) and Marisa (formerly human) being adopted by Ran and, later on, Ren (Kitsune). In that vein, we have Ran being adopted by Yukari.
- This is used to an advantage in Foundling. Chen, disgruntled by Reimu at the festival, is given something of a dressing down by Yukari, reminding her that she is adopted and that, no matter what species, someone loved her, regardless if anyone wanted her. Said dressing down made her shut up.
- Optimus on Earth: When Optimus crash lands on Earth with no memory of what he is or where he came from, he's found by a human girl. The girl, named Shikhi, becomes his first human friend and talks her family into taking him in. After seventy years, he's become a full-fledged member of the family, and openly calls Shikhi's granddaughter his sister.
- Property Of: Invoked. The Decepticons have tricked the Autobots into thinking that humans aren't sentient. Thus, many humans have been taken from Earth and sold as pets on Cybertron, including Sam, Mikaela, and Annabelle Lennox. Annabelle is terrified of the situation until Sam explains it to her by saying that Ironhide (her "owner") has adopted her. Later, when the Autobots learn that humans are, in fact, sentient, Ironhide plays this trope straight and starts acting like a Parental Substitute to Annabelle.
- In the Transformers: Prime fanfic, Suddenly (Shattered Glass), Shattered Glass versions of Arachnid and Breakdown adopt a preschool June when she becomes the Sole Survivor of an Autobot attack in Jasper, Nevada.
- Toriel, a boss monster, adopting Frisk, a human, is a very common occurrence in Undertale fan works.
- Ebott's Wake: Frisk has been living with Toriel ever since they came to the Surface. Frisk finds it strange and even confidence-sapping that their human parents never showed up to reclaim them. Toriel finds it strange, too, but given that their parents seem to have been Abusive, she's of the opinion that it's for the best.
- Nobledark Imperium: Librarian Tigurius's backstory in this universe is that he was taken in as a baby by an Eldar who lost her family in an ork attack. As he grew up however he didn't fit in with his Eldar home, so he was sent off and he eventually joined the Ultramarines. Due to his background he was able to survive psychic contact with the Tyranid Hive Mind.
- Broken By Humanity, Healed By a Dragon: Zarc, a Spirit, is the adoptive father of Yuya, Yuri, Yugo, and Yuto (four human boys).
- Born to Be Wilde:
- A variation with Carla Hyenandez. After losing her parents in a drive by shooting, she was raised by a family of mice, and while she loves them as family, she doesn't consider herself to be their daughter. She ends up marrying one of their biological daughters in adulthood.
- Harvey, a skunk, similarly loses his parents to fire at a young age and is adopted as a brother to the deer Elise, who originally worked said fire. After several years of separation due to his being institutionalized, the two end up reuniting with Carla's help.
- The Door (Zootopia):
- Eli (human) with Judy (rabbit) and Nick (fox).
- Sarah (human) with the Otterton (river otters) family.
- Russell (human) with the Spitzes (Siberian huskies) and their many foster children (who range from giraffes to zebras to fox kits).
- Fantastic Foxes of Zootopia: Skye (swift fox) was adopted by a grey fox (Siwili Autumn) and a swift fox (her father). The two then adopted a red fox.
- Judy's New Life
: Foxes and bunnies can't interbreed, so Nick and Judy adopt a pair of skunk kits.
- Never Say Goodbye: Judy and her wife Shay, who are a rabbit and vixen respectively, adopt a zebra boy named Rafiki and a red panda girl named Mulan.
- Back to the Outback: Jackie, a saltwater crocodile, refers to Maddie (a snake), Frank (a spider), Nigel (a scorpion), and Zoe (a lizard) as her babies, and considers herself their mother. It’s implied she watched over them all as they grew up, as she recalls that when they were brought to the zoo, they were too young to remember their old homes.
- The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales has a fox steal three chicken eggs with the intent of eating them, only for them to hatch and imprint on him, and for him to decide to raise them as his own.
- The Boxtrolls: Eggs is a human orphan raised since infancy by the eponymous Boxtrolls, to the point that for a long time, he thinks he is one.
- Dinosaur: Aladar is an Iguanodon raised by lemurs.
- Doraemon Film Series:
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Winged Braves is set in Birdopia, a world populated by Bird People, with an eagle boy named Gusuke befriending the main characters after accidentally stranding himself in Tokyo. Doraemon and friends later made it to Birdopia and meets Gusuke's family, and are surprised to see that Gusuke's mother and sister are both ducks.
- Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey have the gang visiting Wan-Nyan country, a world populated by andromorphic cats and dogs. Their new ally, Hachi the andromorphic dog, is notably a Doorstop Baby adopted by cats.
- In Epic (1984) the two human children get adopted by a couple of dingoes who raise them as their own.
- Frozen (2013) has Kristoff (a human) and Sven (a reindeer) adopted by the trolls (who are essentially living rocks with magical abilities).
- Ellie from Ice Age: The Meltdown is a mammoth who was adopted by a possum. She even thinks that she's a possum until Manny can convince her that she's a mammoth.
- Kung Fu Panda:
- The page image comes from Kung Fu Panda 2. Po is a giant panda raised by Mr. Ping, a goose; this goes unmentioned in the first movie, but becomes a major plot point in the sequel. His biological family was seemingly massacred by Lord Shen during his attempt at wiping out the Pandas, but Po's father is still alive and living in a hidden panda enclave.
- As explained in the first film, Master Shifu, a red panda, adopted Tai Lung the snow leopard and later Tigress the tigress. The rest of the Furious Five might qualify as well.
- Kung Fu Panda 4 introduces Fish and Chip, a fish adopted by a pelican. There is also Zhen and the Chamaleon, who adopted the fox after she tried to steal from her.
- The Land Before Time has Spike, a Stegosaurus, get adopted by Ducky's family, who are hadrosaurs.
- Leafie, a Hen into the Wild: Most of the movie revolves around a chicken hen and her Happily Adopted son (a duck).
- The Lion King (1994): After his father's death, Simba (lion) is taken in by Heterosexual Life-Partners Timon (a meerkat) and Pumbaa (warthog). This isn't really played as an adoption in the original film, though The Lion King 1 ½ plays it closer to this trope.
- Lucky and Zorba: Lucky the seagull ends up being adopted and raised to independence by Zorba, a housecat.
- Megamind: Both the title character and his nemesis, Metro Man, came to Earth a la Superman. Metro Man was adopted by a rich family; Megamind... crashed into a prison and was raised by the inmates. Why did nobody call Social Services?
- Mother for a Little Mammoth: A baby mammoth frozen in the ice wakes up in modern times and desperately tries to find his mother until a walrus tells him he has heard of similar-looking animals living in Africa. The baby mammoth goes all the way south on an ice floe and gets Happily Adopted by an elephant.
- Mr. Peabody & Sherman: Like its source material, the movie has Mr. Peabody (a dog) adopting Sherman (a human boy). Unlike its source material, the relationship is explicitly portrayed as a father/son relationship, rather than a comedic inversion of "A Boy And His Dog".
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Unlike most versions of the fairy tale where the bears chase her away or eat her for breaking into their house, Mama and Papa Bear adopt the orphan Goldi and raise her along with their biological son.
- Thelma the Unicorn: At one point after her first live show, Thelma willingly signs a paper offered to her on the red carpet by a (human) fan, which legally makes him her son.
- The Ugly Duckling and Me: This Danish animated movie sees a variation of the classic The Ugly Duckling tale where "Ugly" is adopted by a rat named Ratso. An animated series followed.
- The Wild Robot (2024): The overarching plot of the movie concerns Roz, a robot, becoming a mother to an orphaned gosling and raising it to be able to fly south.
- You Are Umasou: A Maiasaurus raises a Tyrannosaurus from birth, who in turn, after running away from home, adopts a baby Ankylosaurus after being mistaken for its father.
- Avatar: The Way of Water: The Sully family, who are Na'vi, adopt Spider, a human boy who is the biological son of Miles Quaritch. It's a somewhat unusual case because Jake Sully, the father of the family, was originally a human himself before permanently transferring into his Avatar body.
- In Babe, Babe the pig is adopted by Fly who is a dog.
- In The Dark Crystal, Jen and Kira, who are Gelflings, were adopted and raised by the Mystics and Podlings respectively.
- Elf: Buddy is a human adopted by one of Santa Claus' elves.
- In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Terran Peter Quill was adopted by Centaurian Yondu Udonta. It's revealed that Yondu was actually hired to take Peter to his dad, but decided Peter would be better off with the Ravagers than Peter's Jerkass real father.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog, before coming to earth, the titular hedgehog's primary caretaker and parental figure was an owl named Longclaw. By the end of the movie, he gets adopted by his human friends, Tom and Maddie. At the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Tom and Maddie also adopt Tails the Fox and Knuckles the Echidna.
- Stuart Little:
- The first movie shows that this is how Stuart becomes part of the human family that adopts him, to remove the conundrum from the original book (where the titular mouse character just had human parents for no apparent reason). This verges on Ascended Fanon, as E. B. White received letters from adoptive children for years talking about how Stuart was a wonderful allegory for the way they felt... despite White having no such intentions, and Stuart explicitly being Mr. and Mrs. Little's biological son in the book.
- In Stuart Little 2, Margalo the canary was orphaned at one time and Falcon took her in. He then used her as a servant for his criminal plans.
- The One and Only Ivan: Zig-zagged.
- For a while after she comes to the Big Top Mall, Ruby (a baby elephant) is cared for by Stella, a much older elephant. Once Stella passes away due to an infection, Ivan (a silverback gorilla) steps in as her parental figure, though he often needs help from Bob (a dog). By the end of the movie, when Ivan and Ruby have been taken to a zoo, Ruby is shown among other elephants, who have accepted her as one of them.
- The movie also shows that Ivan was mainly raised by Mack and his (later ex) wife after he was taken from the jungle as a baby. Hence why Ivan now lives in an enclosure at the mall.
- In Thor (2011), Loki turns out to be a Frost Giant adopted by Odin and raised as his own under a glamour.
- The Ugly Dachshund: A Great Dane thinks he's a dachshund because he was raised by a dachshund mother.
- There is a famous joke about a turtle that constantly climbs up a tree and jumps down with its legs spread. After a few attempts (and the turtle getting quite a few traumas), a bird watching it from nearby asks its mate, "Should we tell our son he's adopted?"
- Babylon 5: In the short story "True Seeker" a young Narn girl born in 2353 is evacuated from Narn. Adopted by human parents she was raised on Earth with the name Jerrica Thomas but was sent to the Narn Academy in San Francisco in order to learn about her people. Returning to Narn in 2269 she discovered that her father was the religious figure G'Kar.
- Bravelands: After his father is killed by a rogue lion, Fearless the lion cub ends up being adopted by a troop of baboons. He bonds with several baboons like Mud and fellow protagonist Thorn, but he also faces prejudice from other baboons for being a larger predator. He ends up kicked out of the troop at one year old because the new leader doesn't like him.
- In Brimstone Angels, heroine Farideh and her twin sister Havilar are tieflingsnote who were adopted and raised by a dragonborn named Mehen.
- Bunnicula has a rare example of the child "adopting" the parent: Howie, a wire-haired dachshund puppy, inexplicably latches onto Chester, a cat, as his "Pop" when he is adopted by the Monroe family following the second book (as opposed to Harold, the actual older dog among the Monroe pets, who Howie calls "Uncle Harold"). Chester, who doesn't exactly hold dogs in high esteem, has no idea why the kid formed this attachment, but eventually just resigns himself to it.
- The Call of the Swamp by Davide Cali and Marco Soma tells the story of an anthropomorphic axolotl found on the shore of a swamp and taken in by a human husband and wife who are infertile. He has a fairly normal humanlike childhood, with some accommodations for his amphibian biology like sleeping in a bathtub rather than on a bed. But one day he catches a faint scent of his old swamp home and decides to go back there to figure out more about his heritage. He gets along with the other swamp inhabitants and is happy to be able to explore an environment where his axolotl biology thrives, but he ultimately decides that he'll be happier with his human parents.
- The picture book A Child Is a Child by Brigitte Weninger is about two orphaned frogs. They are discovered by a mole, a blackbird and a hedgehog who all agree that they don't have what it takes to take care of them. Then Mama Mouse comes along with her children and decides to adopt the frogs. Mr. Hedgehog tells her that it's not that easy, but she replies "That's ridiculous! It's simple. A child is a child. All children need a place to live and play, good food to eat and someone who loves them!" She then enlists of all their help in raising the frogs.
- Child of the Wolves is about a husky puppy named Granite who is adopted by wolves after he escapes his new owner.
- Cradle Series: Lindon briefly meets a black dragon who is outspoken against the way dragons treat humans, and has even adopted a number of humans himself. Of course, Lindon only finds this out after he's nearly killed the poor bastard and used his Cannibalism Superpower to drain most of his power (and some of his memories, which is how he found out). Lindon quickly assures himself that he'll recover.
- This comes up in The Demon's Lexicon when Nick is revealed to be a demon, raised mostly by his brother Alan.
- DFZ: Legally, Opal is the adopted human daughter of Yong, Great Dragon of Korea. This is complicated a bit because she is actually the daughter of Yong's human consort, genetically engineered under Yong's orders and always intended to be his daughter. While they are not actually biologically related (since Half Human Hybrids aren't a thing), magically is another story. Between the dragon ability to take unrelated dragons into their clan, and the human ability to subconsciously shove magic at anything they consider important, they are father and daughter in every way that matters. Much of the plot of the third book revolves around them taking advantage of this connection to combine human and dragon magic in ways that would normally be impossible.
- Dinosaur from Dinosaur Vs is a young dinosaur adopted by a human couple.
- Discworld
- In Guards! Guards!, Carrot is a human adopted by dwarves. He is completely oblivious to this, even when his adoptive father tries to explain that there's a reason he was always too tall to fit in dwarf passages correctly. Notable in that even after it's been explained to him and he's accepted that he is biologically a human, Carrot still considers himself a dwarf, albeit a very tall one. Though, in Discworld being 'a dwarf' is as much a matter of cultural identity than it is a fact of one's species.
- In Snuff, Miss Felicity Beadle's mother was raised by goblins. Since the humans in the Shires had a severe case of Fantastic Racism, they interpreted this as a child being kidnapped by goblins, and "rescued" her.
- It's mentioned in Raising Steam that it's very hard for a dwarf/human couple to have children, but they frequently adopt. Presumably, the child would be this to at least one parent.
- One Doctor Who short story said that the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, and her husband, David, adopted three orphaned human children, whom they named Ian, Barbara and David Junior. (David Senior may be human, but he sure as hell didn't marry one.)
- A Dog's Way Home:
- Bella's mother and siblings were taken by humans when she was a month or two old. Bella was raised by a feral, nursing cat she calls "Mother Cat". When Bella refers to her mother, she's always talking about her adopted mother. Even after Bella leaves Mother Cat and grows into an adult, Mother Cat still recognizes her.
- While Bella is trying to get back to her owner, she sees poachers kill a cougar mother. The cub starts following Bella around. Bella dubs her "Big Kitten". Big Kitten ends up vital to Bella's survival as she has better hunting instincts than Bella. The two end up separated when Bella gets taken in by humans but reunite again months later. Bella comes to the realization that Big Kitten can't live with her and her owner, but Bella wants too badly to be with her human that she can't stay with Big Kitten in the wilderness either. The two have to part ways in the end.
- In the short story "Homecalling" by Judith Merril a preteen girl and her baby brother survive a spaceship wreck that kills both of their parents. They are found by an insect-like alien Hive Queen that adopts them and does its best to take care of them despite being completely unfamiliar with humans.
- Horton Hatches the Egg twists this trope due to the story's Anvilicious theme of nurture overcoming nature. Since Horton took responsibility for the egg that Mayzie abandoned, the chick finally hatches as an elephant-bird hybrid, and identifies Horton as its parent, rejecting Mayzie.
- James and the Giant Peach: Less so in the original novel, but in the movie and the musical adaptations, we have the human child James, an orphan, who is adopted by his humanized insect companions. They turn out to be very loving, adoring parent-figures to James, unlike his abusive guardian aunts who he was living with after his mother and father died.
- The Japanese children's book "The Kindly Lion"/"The Gentle Lion" (Yasashii Lion) by Takashi Yanase. Stars a lion cub named Buru-Buru, that gets adopted and raised by a female dog named Muku-Muku
◊. Due to Buru-Buru's actual mother passing away after giving birth to him early in the story and Muku-Muku losing her own child moments after birth. While not mentioned, Buru-Buru's father
◊ also passed away at an unknown period in the story. The story would get adapted into an animated short in 1970
by Mushi Productions with Osamu Tezuka as the executive producer.
- In The Kitten Who Thought He Was a Mouse, the titular kitten is abandoned by his family before he even opens his eyes, and is taken in by a family of mice, growing up to believe that he is a mouse himself. Eventually, he discovers his true species, but remains in contact with his mouse family.
- Kitty Cat Kill Sat: Lily ad-Alice was once an ordinary housecat adopted by a human woman. This was not just a polite way of describing a pet/owner relationship; Alice gave Lily her bond name, explicitly referred to her as her daughter, and the reason that Lily is now immortal is because when Alice's co-worker tried to do something that involved killing Lily to activate the machine, Alice shot him and died herself. Centuries later, Lily still refers to Alice as her mother, even though she's long since become an Uplifted Animal.
- The Last Human: The titular last human is known as Sarya the Daughter, adopted by Shenya the Widow. It should be noted that Widows are a Proud Warrior Race who practice The Spartan Way on their own hatchlings, much less adopted children. "The Daughter" is not a description or an honorific, it is a title that Sarya earned through an eight-day trial that, statistically, would most likely have resulted in her death.
- The children's picture book My New Mom & Me
is about a cat who adopts a dog as her son. He is nervous at first and tries to make himself look like her, but she tells him she likes that they look different.
- Not Quite a Mermaid:
- When Electra was a baby, merpeople found her floating alone in a lifeboat after a big storm. She was given sea powder, which lets her breathe underwater, and was adopted by the mermaid Maris. Electra likes living in the ocean and thinks of herself as a mermaid, even though she's the only merperson with legs.
- It's also common for mer families to take in orphaned dolphins until they're old enough to travel alone. In Mermaid Island, Maris adopts a bottlenose dolphin named Splash whose parents were killed by sharks. Splash and Electra become best friends.
- RuneScape: Betrayal at Falador, Kara was adopted and raised by dwarfs.
- Dick King-Smith has a few of these;
- The Sheep-Pig, in which a piglet is raised by a sheep-dog (if this sounds familiar, it's because the book was adapted into Babe).
- The Cuckoo Child, in which an ostrich is raised by a pair of geese (although for some time the ostrich was assumed by his parents to just be a strange goose, even if the farm that owned them knew what had happened).
- Dragon Boy, in which an orphaned boy is taken in by a pair of dragons, uses the trope in a more fantastic way.
- Magnus Powermouse has a lesser version of this; Magnus is permitted to consider Roland the rabbit his uncle, although his parents are both alive, as Roland expresses a fondness for children and imagines himself to have nieces and nephews from his long-absent siblings.
- Felicity the duck is either this or Intergenerational Friendship with Daggie Dogfoot the pig in Pigs Might Fly as Daggie's mother is still around but Felicity is the one who teaches Daggie how to swim.
- Space Brat: In book 5, a prehistoric saber-toothed poodnoobie snatches up Lunk (and Blork follows him into her nest). She later comes to retrieve Blork and Lunk after they've escaped; Blork realizes that Momma Sabertooth now considers him to be one of her babies just as much as Lunk, regardless of species.
- In Spectrum (2002) by Sergey Lukyanenko the human heronote ends up adopting a teenage alien bird-girl as a "reward" for saving her life. His Love Interest cracks jokes about an "interplanetary paedophile", but demonstrates that she can be a capable mother, despite being in her late teens herself. The adopted girl turns out to be the Chosen One prophecised to wake her planet from its millennia-long Diesel Punk stasis where rigid laws allow the population not to think. She ends up becoming the queen equivalent and legally adult and staying home.
- Star Wars Legends
- Galaxy of Fear has Hoole, a Shi'ido Shapeshifter, adopt the human kids Tash and Zak. He's actually their uncle, since his brother married one of their aunts, and Shi'ido culture encourages him to take them in despite barely knowing them.
- The X-wing series gives us Viull "Skut" Gorsat, a Yuuzhan Vong abandoned by his biological parents and adopted by a human family. His human dad is the reason he joins Wraith Squadron, because as a child he was told stories of how they rescued his father.
- There is also Tahiri Veila, who was adopted by the Sand People.
- Han Solo himself also falls into this category. He had been orphaned at a very young age, and while working for a rather nasty thief, he gets taken in and cared for by a kindly, elderly female Wookiee. Han even comments in a later novel that due to the love she gave him, and the fact that Chewie and other Wookiees have saved his skin on countless occasions, he feels he owes the Wookiees a life debt, not the other way around.
- Star Trek:
- In the original series novel "Child of Two Worlds" a Cyprian girl named Elzura is adoped by the Klingon General Krunn after being taken in raid that had killed her father. Given the Klingon name Merata she comes to consider herself a Klingon. Ultimately her family realizes that Merata could never adapt to living on Cypria after living as a Klingon for so long, and Spock helps Merata escape back to the Klingon fleet.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: In the novel Reunion identical twin sisters Gerda and Idun Asmund were adopted by the Klingon Warrokh after the Alpha Zion colony was destroyed by Klingon raiders and the girls were the only surviors.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In the relaunch novel "The Never Ending Sacrifice" Captain Sisko's decision to return Rugal Pa'Dar to his adopted family is overturned on the grounds that the decision had not followed Bajoran law, making him the legally adopted son of the Bajorans Proka Migdal and Proka Etra, and by extension a Federation citizen. Rugal in turns adopts the human orphan Hulya Kiliç, who he had encountered at the ruins of a farm on Ithic II that Rugal's girlfriend Penelya Khevet had previously owned.
- The eponymous fruit bat of Stellaluna gets separated from her mother by an owl. She gets taken in by a family of birds, where the mother makes her eat and sleep like them instead of like a fruit bat. Stellaluna eventually reunites with her birth mother and learns proper fruit bat habits but still considers the bird siblings to be her family.
- In Team Human, Kit is a teenager raised by a family of vampires; he's spent very little time around non-vampire humans.
- The children's book Tyrannosaurus Drip by Julia Donaldson is about a duckbill dinosaur "adopted" by tyrannosaurs. (Mother Tyrannosaur can't count, and doesn't realise there's one more egg than there should be.)
- "The Ugly Duckling" is a classic example of this trope. A swan raised by a duck.
- In the Warrior Cats novella Hollyleaf's Story, Hollyleaf attempts this for a day or so with a fox cub lost in the tunnel, finding it and caring for it before later bringing it back outside. She encounters it a year later and happily greets it, only to find that it does not remember her and it attacks her.
- In the 1920s Winnie-the-Pooh books, Tigger (a Tiger toy) lives with Kanga and Roo (Kangaroo toys) and is considered part of the family.
- The children's picture book Wolfie the Bunny is about a baby wolf left as a Doorstop Baby for a rabbit family. The older rabbit sister is insistent that Wolfie is going to eat them all someday, especially when Wolfie grows to be much bigger than her, but an incident with a hungry bear manages to awaken her Big Sister Instinct.
- "Wolves of the Beyond": The main character, Faolan, is a wolf who was forced to be abandoned and left to die due to being born with a splayed paw. However, he survives because a grizzly bear named Thunderheart adopts him and raises him as her own. He learns bear behavior such as walking on his hind legs because of this.
- In The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, Gorgo, an eagle was raised by Akka, a goose.
- The picture book Zachary's New Home: A Story for Foster and Adopted Children
is about a kitten named Zachary who is adopted by the geese Marie and Tom.
- The Mandalorian: The titular Mandalorian, a human, and The Child, whose species is unknown save that he's from the same one as Yoda. The Mando develops such a paternal connection with the child that he refuses to leave it with the Imperial remnant that hired him to find the kid. At the end of the first season The Armorer, the head of their tribe, declares The Child an official Mandalorian Foundling under Mando's care. On hearing this the Child happily coos at his new father.
Armorer: A Foundling is in your care. By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind — you are as its father. This is the way.
- Mittens & Pants: Pants is a dog who is adopted into a rabbit family.
- The Muppets Mayhem: While Floyd and Animal have played in a band together since the 1970s, it's only in this series that the true depth of their relationship is revealed: Floyd found a baby Animal left on his doorstep. He immediately took Animal in and has looked out for him ever since. While they're both Muppets, Floyd is more human-looking while Animal is... Animal.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- Worf was adopted by the Rozhenkos, a human couple from Russia. In turn, Worf's son Alexander Rozhenko was also raised by Worf's adoptive parents after the mother died.
- The episode "Suddenly Human" has a human boy whose birth parents were killed in a skirmish with the Talarians, who adopted the boy. While Picard initially believes that he would be better back with the Federation, he eventually realizes that the boy wants to stay with his adoptive father.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has "Cardassians", which is very similar to the above except that it's about a Cardassian child named Rugal who had been raised by Bajorans. In this case, however, his still-living Cardassian father got custody, since the boy had actually been illegally given up by an enemy with a grudge.
- Later, in the novel verse work The Never-Ending Sacrifice Sisko's decision to return Rugal to his Cardassian family was overturned on the grounds that it was not in keeping with Bajoran law. As a result, Rugal was once again considered the adopted son of the Bajorans who raised him, and by extension a Federation citizen. Rugal in turn adopted a human orphan named Hulya Kiliç.
- Star Trek: Voyager has an odd example with a species that can resurrect the dead, and did so to a Voyager crew member who got a burial in space. She had lived for years with a "father" from that species, but eventually her memories of being on the ship came back and she tracked them down. However, she ultimately decided to return with the aliens.
- Later in the series, the crew found a Borg ship with all the drones dead except for a few children, for whom Seven became a Parental Substitute; while all of them were former Borg drones, none of the kids were human. Three of the kids eventually left when Voyager for another ship they ran into; the oldest, Icheb, decided to stay on Voyager after learning that his birth parents genetically engineered him as a weapon against the Borg and purposely got him assimilated.
- In at least one Japanese version of "The Swan Maiden", an elderly couple makes a celestial maiden (tennyo) their daughter by hiding her feather garment.
- The Pajanimals are a dog, a horse, a cow, and a duck, but there is only one mother and father, albeit as off-screen voices. It's not even clear if the mother and father are the same species.
- Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean: the hero Pike was raised by harpies after his human parents were slain by goblins.
- Amber Isle: Orla (a Glyptodon armadillo) is the adoptive mother of Gale (a Thereizinosaurus dinosaur).
- Breath of Fire IV has Ursula, who was raised by a human General.
- BUCK: Saturday Morning Cartoon Apocalypse: Buck is an anthropomorphic dog who had been raised by a vulture.
- In Deltarune, Kris (human) was adopted when they were young by the Dreemurr family (goatlike monsters). Their mother mentions that at one point when they were small, they asked when their horns would grow in.
- In Devil May Cry 2, a big deal is made out of Lucia being a flawed demonic construct of Arius instead of Matier's biological daughter. After going through a Heroic BSoD and struggling with the ramifications of her true nature for a bit, Matier comforts Lucia and outright tells her, "You are my daughter." This gives Lucia the strength to carry on and break out of her clone complex.
- Adell in Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is a demon adopted by humans as a result of his biological parents leaving to fight fake Zenon. They fail.
- Elden Ring:
- If you advance the human Roderika's questline, she will settle at the Roundtable Hold. You can convince Smithing Master Hewg, a friendly Misbegotten (essentially a type of scaly, monkey-like creature), to take her on as an apprentice, after which she'll become a spirit-tuner. Hewg will eventually say that he has come to consider her a daughter.
- In the Volcano Manor, you'll eventually find out that Tanith and Rya are an example. Tanith is the human Proprietress of Volcano Manor, while her adopted daughter Rya, while initially appearing to be a human girl when first meeting the player character, is actually a disguised Man-Serpent whose real name is Zorayas. She takes on a human disguise when inviting recruits to join her mother's assassination guild so she doesn't freak people out.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:
- There are children up for adoption as of the Hearthfire DLC. The children are all human, while the PC that adopts them can be many other species.
- The Dunmer Brand-Shei was raised by an Argonian family. This is fairly interesting and even a bit heartwarming when you consider the historical relationship between Dunmer and Argonians.
- Final Fantasy
- Rydia, a human Summoner, is brought to the Feymarch early into the story of Final Fantasy IV to be trained by the Eidolons and comes to see the king and queen, Leviathan and Asura, as her new parents. At the end of the sequel, the last remaining Maenad is then adopted by Rydia and christened Cuore. This is a bit of an ambiguous example as the Maenads are a race of Artificial Humans made in Rydia's image by The Creator.
- After the Time Skip in Final Fantasy VI, the half-human, half-Esper Terra is shown to have adopted some children from Mobliz whose parents were killed by Kefka's Light of Judgment.
- Final Fantasy VII: When the party arrives in Cosmo Canyon, Nanaki, a.k.a. Red XIII, gets to introduce them to his grandpa Bugenhagen. Red XIII is an intelligent wolf-like creature, while Bugenhagen is a human.
- Final Fantasy XIV brings a number of different examples in its story:
- Minfilia (a Hyur) comes to regard F'lhaminn (a Miqo'te) as her adoptive mother, a feeling that F'lhaminn happily returns.
- Krile (a Lalafell) is adopted by Galuf (a Hyur), which is even commented on as to why her full name rejects the traditional Lalafell style, as he named her. It's later revealed that she's not just an interspecies adoptee, but an interdimensional one as well, as she was given to Galuf as an infant by her parents from another Shard.
- Two of Turali leader Gulool Ja Ja's adoptive children are Wuk Lamat and Koana. Gulool Ja Ja is a Mamool Ja, while Wuk Lamat is a Hrothgar and Koana is a Miqo'te.
- Depending on the species of the Warrior of Light, their adoption as a ward of House Fortemps can count, as they are Elezen and the Warrior may very well not be.
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance: Tormod, a beorc, was found at a young age by the tiger laguz Muarim and raised by him.
- F-Zero's Leon, depending on the game (although both examples still fit). In X, he's adopted by Mrs. Arrow and her husband Super Arrow, a crime-fighting superhero couple. According to GX, however, he was instead adopted by Fable, a soldier belonging to the race that attacked Leon's homeworld twelve years ago (which led to the poor kid losing his parents and his left eye, as well as Zou becoming an economical dump) who rebelled when he became disgusted by their tactics. Leon's a bipedal cat-like alien, the Arrows are human, and Fable is another species of extraterrestrial being.
- In Granblue Fantasy, Camieux is the adopted daughter of a gunsmith family. Her sisters are Silva and Cucouroux, who are humans, while she is a draph, a human-like race with elf ears and sports a pair of horns.
- Illbleed:
- In the "Revenge of Queen Worm" section of the game, it turns out that 'Rachel' is a giant mutant worm that David (human) raised as his daughter. She even calls him "Papa" after you defeat her. It's all very strange.
- We're never told if Eriko and her dad are related by blood, but given that there's no indication of said character being anything other than human, and that their parent definitely isn't...
- Near the end of Mass Effect 3, a female Commander Shepard can discuss this idea with Garrus if his romance sidequest was completed.
- The Codex indicates that the asari once attempted to "civilize" the vorcha, a race known for their savagery and unpredictability, by adopting vorcha orphans and raising them in asari society. The adopted Vorcha lived peaceful and happy lives, showing that their species' predisposition for violence was cultural rather than innate, but the fact that Vorcha only live for 20 years while Asari live for over 1000 meant that few asari were willing to painstakingly raise many generations just to watch them die.
- After her parents were killed by Space Pirates, Samus Aran from the Metroid series was adopted by the Chozo, an ancient race of bird-like creatures. The particular group that raised her would later go into hiding alongside the rest of their species, but before that happened, they managed to train her to be one of the galaxy's greatest warriors. And depending on how sapient you view Metroids to be, Samus then picks up the parental side of the trope with the infant Metroid from Metroid II: Return of Samus, whose bond with Samus becomes a major plot point for the next few games.
- Neverwinter Nights 2. The protagonist's race can change, but the foster father is always the same.
- The plot of Pinstripe begins when Mr. Pinstripe kidnaps your daughter Bo and says that he's going to adopt her and replace you as her father. Bo is a human girl, and Pinstripe is... well, we're not sure what Pinstripe is, but he's definitely not human.
- Restoring Falmay: Guidy is a beast person who was adopted by a fairy couple in the second major section in Falmay's forest.
- SongBird Symphony: While they are both birds, Birb is not from the same species as Uncle Pea. Also, Egbert is not a chicken.
- Penn in Soul Nomad & the World Eaters is adopted by the Nereids. This is part of a breeding plan when he turns 18.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Mallow note from Super Mario RPG, originally from Nimbus Land, was adopted by Frogfucius in Frog Pond, and grew up largely believing he was a frog "who can't jump."
- Introduced in Super Mario Galaxy, Rosalina is the adoptive mother of the Lumas, the star babies. Despite the massive difference between them, they live very happily under the care of their "Mama."
- Tales of Symphonia: The main character Lloyd is a human who was adopted by a dwarf. Lloyd turns out to be half angel.
- By the end of Part 1 of Trick Comes Home, the titular character rescues a chicken egg from a farm and it hatches right after, deciding to adopt it as their son and naming him Phoenix.
- Twisted-Wonderland: Lilia, a fairy, fosters human Silver and half-fairy Sebek.
- In Undertale, the motherly goat-monster Toriel hopes to adopt you after you fall into the Underground. It is later revealed that she and her then-husband Asgore adopted another human child who fell in a long time ago; the death of both the human child and their biological son Asriel was what kicked off the plot and led to their separation. If the player goes the route of the True Pacifist, in the ending you'll be able to tell Toriel that you want to stay with her, and she'll adopt you for real.
- Helluva Boss: Loona (a Hellhound) is the adoptive daughter of Blitzo (an imp). Their relationship is strained; even though Blitzo dotes on her and cuts her a lot of slack, she doesn't express affection in return, as she was almost 18 when he adopted her. "Seeing Stars" reveals her horrible living conditions in the "hellhound adoption center", and that she's more grateful to Blitzo than she lets on.
- Cloudscratcher: Felix (a cat) was adopted by the Captain (a dog).
- Channel Ate: Two merfolk decide to reveal that their son is adopted. Cut to a human. A drowned human.
- Friends You Are Stuck With eventually reveals that husky brothers Jordi and Gareth were adopted by a cat couple.
- Furthia High has Cale, the last known human on earth adopted by an anthropomorphic cat and a tigress.
- The trolls in Homestuck. It's societal norm for them to be raised by another species. However, these guardians may or may not be totally sentient, and not all of them are good parents, so it also delves a bit into Raised by Wolves.
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! — Molly the Peanut Butter Monster was raised by Bob. She's currently staying with Jean, who considers herself Molly's mother because they share a little bit of genetic material.
- Lindesfarne in Kevin & Kell, a hedgehog adopted by a rabbit.
- And more recently, sheep couple Bruno and Corrie have adopted an infant chameleon named Carla.
- The Last Human (In a Crowded Galaxy): The titular last human, Sarya, is raised by her adoptive mother Shenya, a terrifying Insectoid Alien.
- Neokosmos is about human kids raised from infancy by aliens in solitary confinement in a space station After the End.
- In Ozy and Millie, Ozy (a fox) is the adopted son of Llewellyn (a dragon).
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: In this
strip, a young man gets relationship advice from his dad. This is made complicated because his adoptive father is a giant talking wasp who is convinced that women only want to paralyze caterpillars and lay eggs in their moist bodies. Though the votee button reveals that he's actually right about his son's girlfriend.
Interspecies adoption is always difficult. - Runaway to the Stars: In an AMA
Jay notes humans and avian aliens are the most likely to adopt children of other species. Both species put a lot of work and resources into raising children and have a strong "cute" response that can apply to creatures quite unlike themselves, while centaurs and scuds both have had to develop social strategies to prevent explosive population growth and bug ferrets don't have such a flexible "cute" sense and so aren't readily drawn to want to take care of anything but their own kind.
- The human foster care workers tried to get Talita back to her own kind, but centaurs don't have much empathy for a lone infant of uncertain origins and recommended euthanasia. So the humans kept her and brought her up as best they could, with many bumps along the way. The human Douglas especially took an interest in her welfare, although he couldn't formally adopt her since she was a tremendously expensive child. Talita grew up awkwardly a Child of Two Worlds, strongly imprinted on humans to the point of struggling to communicate with other centaurs.
- The avian Sirawit was adopted from foster care by a human (Jing), and Jing was raised by an avian dun as well. Sirawit jokes that if they adopt a human, they would keep the pattern going. Neither of them are nearly as imprinted on the other species as Talita is, although Jing tends to emote in ways that mirror avian body language.
- Selkie is about an amphibious young girl and the man who adopts her.
- In Sheldon, Flaco the lizard became the adopted son of Arthur, a duck, after a mistaken egg-hatching.
- Buwaro, Sakido, and Iratu, all demons, are adopted by the angel Darius in Slightly Damned.
- Tessa (fox) of S.S.D.D. was adopted by a family of rats. Which might be one of the reasons she always felt like an outcast.
- Step Monster involves a human sister and brother left alone by their jailed dad and alcoholic mom who are at risk of getting split up by child services. Matilda, a fluffy dragonlike monster who has lived in the boy's closet scaring him for 5 years, reluctantly agrees to disguise herself and pretend to be the kids' aunt taking care of them because she would otherwise need to move out of the house too if the kids left.
- Tamberlane: Belfry, a bat who might be part squirrel, was adopted by a badger and a deer, then she herself adopted that strange furless kit.
- King Jahad from Tower of God adopts his daughters purely based on looks and ability, so there are some of his daughters who aren't Human.
- In Urban Jungle sole human character Zack was quite literally Raised by Wolves, and his brother Chuck is a sheep.
- Wigglyverse: The Wiggly dads, both worms, adopt Heidi, a badger and treat her as their daughter.
- In Yokoka's Quest, the inhabitants of Betel's Forest all believe that they are Betel's children, despite Betel being a manticore and the rest being a wide variety of different species.
- Quite a few characters from Cerberus Daily News. This includes (but is not limited to) a turian who was adopted by a human couple (Gahars Patnus), a human who was adopted by an asari couple (Some_Random_Merc/Johnny), a drell who adopted a human infant (Rohim), a human whose legal guardian and father-figure is a turian (Wildflower/Flower and Davril, respectively), a human who was raised by a quarian (Human Quarian/Kolya), and an elcor who adopted a human (Xuumo/"Slow and Steady").
- From Fat, French and Fabulous, co-host Jessica, possibly. Whether she was Raised by Wolves or by humans à la Superman is ambiguous.
- The tiular character of The Last Human
has been Happily Adopted by an insectoid alien known only as "Mother".
- In the fifth season of Puppet History, The Professor (a living puppet) is stuck in the Cretaceous Period. He winds up being taken in by two dinosaurs (who have also been turned into puppets — It Makes Sense in Context, sort of), who adore him completely and act as Doting Parents. The Professor quickly comes to see it as a Happily Adopted situation; he misses his home and time, but loves his new family and even tells them, "You're all I ever need."
- The Weather: Played for Laughs; A recurring plot in "Tornado" features a married couple finding an adopting... a speaking tornado. He gets his own room, goes to school, gets grounded...all while being a tornado that inadvertently trashes his room and gets in trouble for tossing other students in the air, with his parents struggling to discipline him. They eventually release him, realizing a tornado can't live a human life.
- Welcome Home (Clown Illustrations): Barnaby is described as being the adopted son of "the chicken who crossed the road", whose surname was inexplicably "Beagle" for the sake of humor.
- In Yandere High School, Taurtis adopts PufferFishPete's children because Pete thinks his children are weak.
- On Adventure Time, Finn is possibly the last real human in Ooo. He was found in a forest by a pair of talking dogs, who raised him until their deaths (when Finn's adopted brother, Jake, apparently had a Promotion to Parent).
- Darwin from The Amazing World of Gumball used to just be the Watterson family's pet fish, but he developed intelligence, grew legs, became Gumball's best friend, and the family adopted him as one of their own. The parallel to real life interracial adoption is made especially obvious by how all four of Darwin's voice actors in English are black, but the ones for the rest of the family are white.
- In Amphibia, Anne Boonchuy is a 13-year-old human who finds herself trapped in a world where humanoid amphibians are the dominant lifeform... sort of. Although initially mistaken for a large, hideous, and terrifying monster, she soon builds an inseparable bond with the native Plantar family and becomes fully regarded as one of them. In this case, it is technically interspecies fostering since she still has a human family she means to return to, but regardless, on at least one occasion, Hop Pop refers to her as his "adopted granddaughter".
- In the Arthur episode "Big Brother Binky," the Barnes family, which consists of bulldogs, adopts a Chinese bear cub named Mei Lin.
- BoJack Horseman:
- This is the premise of the Show Within a Show Horsin' Around (which BoJack starred in during The '90s), which is about three human children being raised by a horse. Its rival show Mister Peanutbutter's House also involved this, with a dog raising three human children.
- Diane and her family are mostly human, except for Diane's adoptive brother Gary, who's a sheep.
- Hollyhock was adopted and raised by eight gay men in a polyamorous marriage, and none of them are horses like her (specifically they're five humans, a bear, a lizard and a duck).
- In "The Stopped Show", Princess Carolyn, after trying all season to adopt a kid so she could become the mother she'd always wanted to be, finally succeeds in adopting an adorable porcupine baby girl she eventually names Ruthie.
- Buzz Lightyear of Star Command probably topped this concept beyond most other examples by having a human girl being adopted by two robots.
- An episode of Camp Lazlo showed that Samson (a guinea pig) has jellyfish for parents.
- CatDog continually brought up one particular issue over the course of the series: Where did CatDog actually come from? For as long as they can remember, they'd always lived on their own. The series ended with CatDog going on a long journey to find their parents. It was never revealed how CatDog came to be, but for a brief time after they were born, they had been raised by a frog for a father and a sasquatch for a mother. They were all separated in a storm.
- Dinosaur Train:
- The main character, Buddy, is a T. rex who was adopted by a Pteranodon family.
- The episode "All Kinds of Families" introduces Sunny Sauropoiseidon, who was adopted by Microraptors.
- DuckTales (2017) has Lena following her adoption into the Sabrewing family. Even putting aside the whole Living Shadow thing, she's a duck and they're all hummingbirds.
- In Final Space, Gary is forced to take on a Parental Substitute role to Little Cato after Avocato is killed. Though Little Cato starts off abrasive towards Gary due to mourning his dead dad, he quickly warms up to him, especially after learning that Gary lost his own dad too and they are "members of the same club" as he puts it. After suffering a long string of bad incidents in season two, including losing Avocato again shortly after getting him back via time travel, Gary offers to officially adopt Little Cato to help show him he isn't alone. Little Cato responds by happily hugging Gary. Little Cato still refers to Gary as his dad even after they save Avocato again, happy to have both his dads together.
- Harvey Beaks: Technobear's parents are turtles. In fact, Technobear wasn't even aware that he was adopted and once asked if his shell would ever grow in.
- In The Jack Rabbit Story: Easter Fever, the titular Jack Rabbit was raised by chicken parents.
- In The Jungle Bunch, Maurice is a penguin who was raised by a tiger and now thinks he is one. Maurice himself has adopted a fish who now believes he also is a tiger.
- Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Wolf was adopted by a family of Newton Wolves and the trope ends up being a horrific subversion as it turns out that they never intended her to be anything but training for their wolf children to hunt and kill. The wolf cloak she wears was made from the mother wolf. This brutal experience is why she's so cynical and doesn't believe that humans and mutes can live together peacefully.
- Kitty Is Not a Cat: The title character is a human girl who was adopted by a group of cats.
- Lambert the Sheepish Lion is a short where the Delivery Stork accidentally gives a sheep a lion cub for a child. When the stork tries to take him back the sheep refuses and she ends up raising the lion as her own. They're a happy family but Lambert is bullied by the lambs for being seen as a weird looking sheep, until as an adult he saves his mother from a wolf and becomes seen as a hero.
- In Polish animated series Między Nami Bocianami (Between Us Storks) main characters are a family of storks that adopted a cuckoo. In a sense all cuckoos are adopted (although not by storks) so it's not so weird.
- This trope pops up from time to time in Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends:
- We learn from a flashback that Miss. Spider was separated from her mother when she was just a child and she got adopted by Betty Beetle.
- In the pilot film, Miss. Spider adopted three children, each from a different bug species; Dragon (a dragonfly), Shimmer (a jewel beetle), and Bounce (a bedbug).
- The two episodes "Little Ladybug Lost" and "A Beetle-ful Family" center around a young Asian ladybug named Grace who was separated from her family due to her oversleeping during her winter nap, and she winds up being adopted by Stinky the stinkbug and his sister Whiffy.
- Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures: In Mighty Mouse's Superhero Origin, which is a straight parody of Superman's, the counterparts to Martha and Jonathan Kent are Ma and Pa Squirrel, who raise young Mike after his rocketship crashes into their tree.
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Twilight Sparkle (a unicorn) had to induce a dragon egg to hatch as part of her entrance exam in magic school. She ends up being a Cool Big Sis/Parental Substitute to the dragon, who serves as her underling and assistant. While Word of God previously said that it was actually Princess Celestia who raised Spike after he hatched, the episode "Sparkle's Seven" shows that Spike was raised by Twilight's family. Both fit the trope.
- The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: The episode "Find Her, Keep Her" has Rabbit adopting a baby bird named Kessie after saving her during a storm. He grows attached to Kessie and has a hard time letting her go once it's time for her to fly south for the winter.
- The title character of Oswaldo is a penguin who was raised by human parents.
- The Owl House:
- Despite not seeming like the maternal type, and outright hating the idea at first, Eda Clawthorne pulls off two of these:
- She's the adoptive mother of King, a baby... dog-demon-thing who's actually the last Titan. He changes his last name to Clawthorne, and her sister and parents refer to him as their nephew/grandson.
- She becomes the foster mother of Token Human Luz Noceda. Luz loves her real mom, and misses her terribly once they're cut off, but she comes to see Eda as a second mom. As far as they and the denizens of the Boiling Isles are concerned, she's Eda's child.
- In the second season, Luz's mom is revealed to be living with Vee, a shapeshifting basilisk who's been impersonating Luz for months. When she finds out the truth, she's freaked out, but she quickly realizes that Vee is only a child who was in a truly terrifying situation; she at first impersonated Luz just to escape her oppressive and abusive upbringing, and then stuck around because of how kind and affectionate Luz's mom was. Luz's mom never even considers turning Vee away after learning the truth, and instead accepts that she now has two daughters.
- In the third season, Camila's roster of adoptive non-human children expands, when Willow, Gus, Amity, and Hunter (three witches and a grimwalker, respectively) are all forced to flee the Demon Realm alongside Luz, and become refugees in the human world. Camila effectively becomes their foster mother, putting them up in her house and seeing to things like their nutritional and safety needs. She rolls with it remarkably well, though she admits she never expected to have six children.
- Despite not seeming like the maternal type, and outright hating the idea at first, Eda Clawthorne pulls off two of these:
- Robin Robin is about a robin who was raised by mice.
- Rocko's Modern Life: Heffer (a steer) is part of the Wolfe family. They originally took him for food but grew to love him and raised him as their own. The "birthmark" on his rump is where the wolves were going to divide him up. Amusingly, he evidently had no idea he wasn't a biological Wolfe until Rocko off-handedly mentioned it.
- In Rocky and Bullwinkle Peabody (a dog) adopts Sherman (a human boy) from an Orphanage of Fear.
- Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat: One episode featured a dog adopted by a couple of cats.
- The Wildman from Samurai Jack was adopted by Tribe, a tribe of apes with white fur. Originally he was part of a tribe of humans enslaved by Aku, but was accidently left behind as a young child when he got loose from the Wheel of Pain machine the other humans were forced to operate and was taken in and raised by the apes. He doesnt remember his original family, but knows he's a human, and not an ape. Tribe has also trained him in the ability to "Jump Good" as they do, giving him the superhuman ability to jump miles in one stretch.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: SpongeBob and Patrick adopted a baby scallop in one episode. It left other citizens quite confused when they thought about the biology involved.
- ToddWorld:
- In "Platyroo", Todd and his friends try to help a lost platypus named Pedro find his mother. They all think that Pedro's mother is a platypus like him and are initially confused by Pedro's description of what she looks like, but at the end, they find out that she's actually a kangaroo. We also learn that Pedro has a pig for a little brother. In the same episode, Todd sees a frog in a family of ducks, and a rabbit whose parents are penguins.
- There's also a cat named Mitzi that adopts a group of puppies.
- Wakfu:
- At the start of the series, we see how Yugo, an Eliatrope, was adopted as a baby by Alibert, an Enutrof. In later seasons, we see that he has also adopted Yugo's Dragon brother Adamai, as well as another couple of Eliatrope-Dragon siblings: Grugal and Chibi.
- The cheapest ship Ruel could find in the second season is crewed by Black Ink and Elaine, a talking squid and his adopted human daughter.
- Neither of Elyon's parents in W.I.T.C.H. are human, however they pass themselves as human. She didn't know that she was adopted until the Big Bad revealed her parents' true forms.
- Work It Out Wombats!: Louisa is a tarsier, and her adoptive parents are kangaroos.
- Young Justice (2010) has M'gann, a Martian, become Blood Sister to Garfield, only to get a Promotion to Parent when his mother is killed by Queen Bee.
- In the 2022 Short Film The Great Wolf Pack: A Call to Adventure by Great Wolf Entertainment note , Oliver the raccoon has parents who are red pandas.
- Real Life examples involving animals like dogs, cats, and rabbits are a mainstay of websites like Cute Overload and The Dodo.
- Brood parasites
invoke this trope.
- It is especially prevalent with birds. When they hatch, they imprint upon the first live creature they see, and consider it to be their mother.
- As domesticated chicken retain their mother instincts much better than domesticated ducks, it was common (before artificial incubators became common) for farmers to place duck eggs under a brooding hen to be raised by her.
- This
interspecies couple of a rooster and his mate, a female turkey, have adopted several children, including other turkeys and an emu
.
- This Irish cat and her yellow ducklings
.
- One of the strangest incidents of this kind occurred in Samburu, Kenya: a lioness adopted an oryx.
The story really isn't as cute as it initially seems: it didn't live long, and the lioness, overcome with grief, decided to separate another oryx from its herd and adopt that one. It promptly died too. This went on almost a half-dozen times, with the lioness consistently preventing the baby oryxes from reuniting with their own kind.
- A crow adopts a cat
- In real life, baboons will kidnap puppies from mother dogs and raise them as guard dogs. The baboons even treat them like humans do!
- Many people view their pets as adopted family members, especially animals such as dogs or cats. Some go as far as using baby talk and other baby-associated behavior with them.
- There's a woman called Marina Chapman, now living in England, who claims she was kidnapped as a young child in Colombia, abandoned in the jungle, and taken in by a troop of capuchin monkeys with whom she lived for five years. She also claims that after being found by a hunter she was then sold to a brothel and Made a Slave by the mafia. Unsurprisingly, there's considerable disagreement over how much, if any, of her story is actually true.
- A fairly common tactic for wildlife rescue organizations and zoos is to "foster" orphaned or abandoned wild animal babies to domesticated "parents". Numerous fox kits have been raised by dogs
or cats
for instance.
- Spunky the Hawk
, a red-tailed hawk from Vancouver who was raised by a family of bald eagles. No one knows how he got there, but most records make it clear that he's been there since he was a baby and his surrogate family ultimately ended up raising him as their own. A second red-tail was in the nest earlier, but it vanished later on, which has led people to speculate that the eagles originally ate the other hawk and were planning on doing so to Spunky until he begged for food. Basically, Spunky is an avian version of Heffer Wolfe.
- Different Human Subspecies must have done this on occasion at least between tribes. The most popular is between Homo neanderthalensis (sometimes considered a subspecies, however), and Homo sapiens. We have DNA evidence as well to back up this claim, even though these are humans, so it's less dramatic than the other examples.
- Imire game park in Zimbabwe is home to Nzou, an African elephant who was adopted by a herd of cape buffalo after she was orphaned as a baby. She now leads the herd.
- Screech owl raising a duckling.
Only in Florida.
- There was one instance of a lioness in India nursing a baby leopard,
and it's never explained exactly why.

