Unusual Animal Alliance

Yup. These guys do not intend to eat each other.

Sometimes Woodland Creatures or other animals are in deep trouble. Their home has been destroyed and/or they want to build a stronger and better one. Sometimes they have to because Humans Are the Real Monsters, but it can also be because Mother Nature screws them. Such an alliance can lead to Carnivore Confusion because they are herbivores and carnivores working together, which can lead to problems within the group.

Sometimes an group of animals just belong to a group because it's normal, like a wolf pack or a deer herd. That is not this trope.

A piece of media fits this trope if it has the following:

• Animals from different species (often otherwise enemies) working together, promising each other to help accomplish goals (in order to survive).
• They try to build a home, sometimes far away.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters (sometimes)
• A lot of problems lie in their path, which could lead to the death of (several) characters.

Compare to Mixed Animal Species Team for other multi-species animal gatherings.

---

Examples:

Comic Books

• The DC Elseworld Jurassic League sees a Justice League composed of herbivores such as a Brontosaurus, a Triceratops, and a Parasaurolophus with carnivores such as an Allosaurus, a Velociraptor, and a Baryonyx.

Fan Works

• The Bolt Chronicles: The dog/cat/hamster trio of Bolt, Mittens, and Rhino are a most unusual grouping. Once Bolt and Mittens make up after "The Blood Brother," they remain inseparable friends, and in Bolt and Mittens's case, lovers.

Films - Live Action

• Furry Vengeance: The plot of the movie revolves around one of these, an alliance between all animals of the woods, including predators and prey, to fight off a human trying to build property on their woods.

Films — Animation

• Ice Age: The main trio consists of a mammoth, a ground sloth and a sabre-toothed cat, who get together to return a human baby to his parents, and become True Companions along the way. They are joined by other mammoths, sloths, opossums and a weasel in the sequels.
• In The Land Before Time, the team consists of a baby Apatosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Saurolophus and Pteranodon, who team up to find their lost families. The narrator points out that the world 'has never seen a herd like this before'. They are joined by a Tyrannosaurus and an Oviraptor as the series goes on.
• Madagascar: A lion, a zebra, a giraffe and a hippo, occasionally assisted by penguins, chimpanzees and lemurs.
  • Initially subverted for Marty and Alex; they were raised together in a zoo and don't know any better. At the end of the movie, this trope is in full force for them.
• In Dinosaur, Aladar, an Iguanodon, is raised by lemurs, who stay with him even when he meets his species. Aladar and his adopted family then join a herd (led by Iguanodon Kron) consisting of other Iguanodon, Parasaurolophus, Pachyrhinosaurus, Styracosaurus, Microceratus, Stygimiloch, and Struthiomimus. Aladar then falls in with the herd's elders, a Brachiosaurus, a Styracosaurus and an Ankylosaurus. This large multi-species herd predates Aladar's birth, showing that the species are not together just because they're all going to the same place, but suggesting that the dinosaurs of this film always formed a multi-species herd.
• Finding Nemo:
  • Sharks attempt such an alliance with fish and have support meetings to stop eating fish, complete with the mantra: "Fish are friends, not food!".
  • The Tank Gang, who are fish, are friends with a pelican, who lampshades it when he mentions that he does eat fish, but not these fish since they are his friends.
    Nigel: (upon learning Nemo is from the ocean) Sorry if I ever took a snap at ya. Fish gotta swim; birds gotta eat.

Literature

• Animal Farm: At least, at first, various farm animals team up to defeat humans. Then they are usurped by a pig with dictatorical tendencies, assisted by dogs.
• The Wise and Royal Beasts in the Firekeeper Saga have done this on occasion. But when not necessary they follow Survival of the Fittest like any other creatures.
• Redwall:
  • Vermin hordes are often Equal-Opportunity Evil (although sometimes they have Elite Mooks of the same species as the leader), grouping stoats, weasels, ferrets, foxes, and rats. On occasion another species is in charge (such as a wildcat, pine marten, or wolverine), and in Doomwyte the Big Bad is a magpie who allies with snakes and toads in addition to his flock of magpies.
  • The coastal swamps are infested with reptiles and amphibians (snakes and toads mostly) who avoid killing each other when there's woodlanders to ambush.
  • On the good-guy side, Salamandastron is traditionally ruled by a Badger Lord commanding a regiment of hares, while Redwall is populated by mice, otters, squirrels, moles, sometimes a badger Apron Matron, and the occasional Noble Bird of Prey.
• In Watership Down, the rabbits enlist the aid of field mice and — more significantly — the seagull Kehaar to protect their warren.
• In Louise Searl's The Way of Kings (2021), Kachula the lion makes friends with a hyena, the traditional enemy of his species.
• Lampshaded in Wyrd Sisters when the kingdom is suffering from the mismanagement of Duke Felmet and some Woodland Creatures (including rabbits, deer, foxes and wolves) show up on Granny Weatherwax's doorstep. She says this:
  All I know is, whenever this... whatever it is wears off, some of you little buggers are going to want to run really quickly.

Western Animation

• The Animals of Farthing Wood: A large group of all sorts of different animals make a pact and they form friendships. They even have an 'oath of mutual protection' in which they promise not to hurt each other and take care of each other when needed. The trope is lampshaded by the snake, Adder, who wonders how the predators are supposed to survive if they can't eat their prey.
  Badger: Remember the oath! We must stand together and fight!

---