A common way of making monsters or fantastic creatures is to simply take existing animals and combine their parts. For instance, the Chimera (lion head, goat body, snake tail) or the Minotaur (bull head, human body -- a Half-Human Hybrid). Also common is to simply take an existing animal and vary it a simple way -- Pegasus is a horse, but with wings, hippocampi have the heads and front bodies of horses but the tails of fish, etc.
Compare Biological Mashup, which is when two characters are combined after the fact; Mix-and-Match Critters are supposed to look like that. Mix-and-Match Critters may be the result of Hot Skitty-On-Wailord Action. If both creatures are already mythological/magical/whatever and get mixed, they become a Hybrid Monster. Application of the principle to humans may count as Bio Augmentation, see also Mix-and-Match Man.
The world of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is populated with creatures ranging from the apparently delicious Molepig, to the truly bizarre Grapehippo. The Grapehippo is the director's favorite character.
The Chimera Ants in Hunter X Hunter are like this, as the queen can spawn soldier/grunts with traits from any creature she has consumed. And by the end of the arc, she has consumed pretty much an entire country's worth of animal life, and it's almost impossible to tell just how much of what creature went into her final creations. Hunter X Hunter also has naturally-occurring fox-bears and spider-eagles.
In an early episode of One Piece, Luffy and his crew stumble upon an island full of creatures like this, including a fox with a coxcomb and rooster's tail, a pig with a lion's mane, and a snake with rabbit ears.
Also, some of the undead creatures sewn up by Dr. Hogback during the Thriller Bark arc. One example is the one to whom Sanji's shadow was transferred: a penguin with the head of a dog.
Even in less extreme situations, Mix and Match Critters are fairly common, at least in appearance, in One Piece. i.e., the Panshark (shark with panda markings), and bananawani (a large crocodile with a banana shaped growth on the head). It even becomes a Running Gag that Luffy will call these creatures the name of the animal or thing they look least like (that is, pandas and bananas.)
Violinist of Hameln presents Guitar, an anthropomorphic dog that, almost like a centaur, is a deer from the waist down. As in, an entire deer, four legs, head, and tail, is connected to his waist. Hamel, being either unusually obtuse or merely true to form, misunderstood the head peeking out from Guitar's "groin" as something else entirely, to Guitar's annoyance and Flute's embarrassment. Worse, when he suggested that Guitar wear pants, the image of the enormous BULGE (caused by the deer's head) under the warrior's waist horrified Flute.
In Naruto, the three-tail beast is a cross between a turtle and a prawn (most noticeably its tails), while the eight-tailed is a giant bull with octopus tentacles for "tails" and large humanoid arms. We see in an artbook that the Five-Tails is a dolphin-horse.
Manda 2, a modified clone of Manda made by Kabuto is a combination of several different kinds of snakes: a pit viper's head, cobra's hood, and a rattlesnakes tail. It also has eagle-like claws, much the same as the traditional Eastern dragon.
Fullmetal Alchemist has chimeras, which are regular animals alchemically combined. And sometimes they Talking Animal.
Chimairamon of Digimon Adventure 02 is based on the mythical chimera, and it shows. Several other species fall under this on a less extreme scale, with other obvious ones generally the product of a Fusion Dance.
All the Tenchi Muyo! series and spinoffs contain Ryo-Ohki, a cat-rabbit hybrid, often referred to as a "cabbit". Tenchi Muyo! GXP also contains a second cabbit, named Fuku. Tenchi Universe has Ken-Ohki, a male cabbit who ends up as Ryo-Ohki's boyfriend.
In Ranma ½, Jusenkyo has a spring called "Niuhomanmaolenniichuan" (or variations thereof), which translates as "Spring of Drowned Yeti Riding Ox While Carrying Crane And Eel" and is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Anyone who falls into this spring gains an alternate form that is considered exceptionally formidable. In essence, it's a giant minotaur (legs and head of an ox, body and arms of a yeti) with an eel growing from its spine to form a tail and a tiny set of crane wings sprouting from its shoulders. It's inhumanly strong, surprisingly quick, massively tough, and capable of flight. Needless to say, the one character who has this spring considers himself Cursed with Awesome and has no desire to remove it. In fact, possibly because this form was created by such a mixed up spring, he later manages to assimilate a Spring of Drowned Octopus curse, giving himself Combat Tentacles and the ability to spray ink from his fingers. (Though it still begs the question of how these springs can exist, considering the inherent difficulty in drowning an octopus and/or an eel.)
Plenty of Berserk's Apostles and other monsters can be described as these, ranging from Zodd (Bull/tiger/ape) to the ogres (giant humanoids with sperm whale snouts and elephant tusks) to the trolls (Rat/monkey/pig). Then there's the Pisacha, they look like those sea monsters from old sea maps, with elephant trunks, made by mutating a whale.
There also happened to be a kelpie (mythological water horses known for luring and drowning their victims) that looked like a cross between a horse and a toad - http://manga.animea.net/berserk-chapter-25-page-101.html
Inuyasha is practically MADE of this trope; most of the low-level demons are serpents or arthropods.
Five words: The Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man. Technically, he was a ridiculously overpowered Shapeshifter. Who liked turning into mix-and-match critters. A LOT.
Marsupilami, from Spirou and Fantasio and the eponymous title, are vaguely monkey-like creatures, oviparous but with a belly button, with a leopard coat and the occasional melanistic individual.
Also from The DCU, Ultraa, the Multi-Alien. Four alien races have rayguns designed to turn unsuspecting people into members of their race. Ultraa gets hit by all four at once.
If Everything's Worse with Bears and Everything's Even Worse with Sharks, then it's hard to imagine just how appalling things are with Sea Bear and Grizzly Shark!
Script Fic Calvin and Hobbes The Series' "Time Terror" shows Sherman, stranded in the future, forced to become one of these in order to sell... something.
Of course, most of the "Zoo Too" creatures being referred to have names already associated with existing animals, such as the tiger-shark, sheep-dog, horse-fly, cat-fish, bull-frog and the plot-important spider-monkey. And these were created by accident. Whatever you say, Romero.
The Beast in Disney's Beauty and the Beast has the mane of a lion, the beard and head of a buffalo, the brows of a gorilla, the eyes of a human, the tusks of a wild boar, the body of a bear, and the hind legs and tail of a wolf.
Q – The Winged Serpent has the head of a vulture, feathered wings, a snake-like tail, and four limbs sort of like an iguana. On top of that, Q is meant to be the dragon-god Quetzelcoatl... and doesn't really look like him either.
Sharktopus! Heck, Sci-Fi Channel original movies tend to run on these, to the point where there almost appears to be a competition as to which movie features the most ludicrous monster. (Mansquito, Sharkodile, ad infinitum.)
In House II: The Second Story, we have Bippy, the dog with a caterpillar body that was found in the Triassic period.
And the wonderful Bat-Rat-Spider in The Angry Red Planet, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
Star Wars has a few. Most notably Hutts, who are slugs with small arms. Also Toydarians, who look like giant mosquitos...sort of. And Jar Jar is a frog with eyestalks.
In the Discworld novel Eric, the demon-god Quetzovercoatl is described as "half-man, half-chicken, half-jaguar, half-serpent, half-scorpion and half-mad".
Discworld also has the chimera in Sourcery. Unlike the Greek version, the Disc's chimera has the legs of a mermaid, the hair of a tortoise, the teeth of a fowl and the wings of a snake. It's similar to the Greek chimera in having the breath of a furnace, and the temperament of a rubber balloon in a hurricane.
From Going Postal: It was said that there was one horse in Ankh-Morpork that had a longitudinal seam from head to tail, being sewn together from what was left of two horses that had been involved in a particularly nasty accident.
And in The New Discworld Companion, it's mentioned that many of the animals kept at the College of Heralds are descended from previous generations of heraldic models, who'd gotten rather friendly with one another. And it shows.
In Mary Stanton's novels, Anor, a demon in horse mythology, is a red horse with feline eyes, claws, and fangs, and an appetite for red meat.
The Dark Tower had several: Billy-bumblers combined traits of a raccoon, a badger, and a dog. Taheen looked like humans with the heads of birds. The Low Men looked like humans with rodent-like heads -- they usually wore masks and tried to pass as humans. Then there's the "lobstrosities", who were half-frog, half-lobster humanoids.
Not sure what book you guys were reading, but the lobstrosities were ALL lobster, and not humanoid, just very large, with odd vocalizations. Also, the taheen were not only birds. In fact, Finli O'Tego, one of the main antagonists in the final books, was a weasel.
It's also unclear if the billy-bumbler is an actual Mix and Match Critter, as opposed to a fictional animal that happens to share a few traits with those Real Life animals.
Michael Moorcock got into the act too. His Elric of Melniboné stories included the clakar (winged apes), Dharzi hunting dogs (half dog, half bird), myyrrhn (a winged Half-Human Hybrid) and vulture lions (vulture head, lion body).
Othello Bach's Whoever Heard of a Fird? has the title character, Fird, who is a fird (part fish, part bird). Aside from Snyder Spider and the Boogie Monsters, the rest of the cast is entirely two-feature creatures: dickens (part dog, part chickens), hyenant (hyena/ant), woose (worm/goose), shamels (sheep/camel) dryders (dragon/spider), the Blizard (bird/lizard), burtles (bear/turtle), Ms. Girouse (giraffe/mouse), the snoose (snake/mongoose), and, finally, bishes (part bird, part fish). There's also talk of a snog (snail/hog), and the sequel includes a snig (snail/pig). Oh, and almost the entire cast exercises a healthy Arbitrary Skepticism, seeing as they're convinced that there's no such thing as a fird.
There was also a very short-lived line of stuffed toys by Remco based upon these characters, which identified these hybrid creatures as "Firffels". Coincidentally - or not - they arrived around the same time the Wuzzles toy line was launched (this blog post has a few pictures and was written by someone who had no idea they were based on a book).
Piers Anthony has quite a lot of these. In his Apprentice Adept series, he uses classical mythology. His Dragon's Gold books feature multiple hybrids.
And, of course, who can forget Xanth. Aside from "ordinary" creatures like centaurs or harpies, there are also things like flying centaurs, half-demon anything, winged mermaids, and mer-nagas. If all that is not enough for you, how about a half-car, half-harpy?
In another Piers Anthony book every animal in an Alternative Universe is one of these except dragons and possibly froogs. This leads to things such as bearvers and meer.
Dune has the Bene Tleilaxu's Sligs - slugs and pigs genetically mashed together. Apparently it makes the meat tender and succulent.
Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake has quite a few including wolvogs (genetically modified wolf/dogs designed for home defense), the spoat/gider (a goat with spider genes, used for the production of high-strength fiber), and the snat, described as "an unfortunate combination of snake and rat" (apparently both lethal and testy).
Jack Chalker's Well World is filled to the brim with semi-mythological mix-and-match critters, justified as the result of lazy alien species designers cribbing each others' work. Meanwhile, the mix-and-match critters from mythology are justified as legends and "racial memories" stemming from our own species' creation on the Well World.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels had such creatures as the Winged Monkeys, the Kalidahs (part tiger, part bear) and the Li-Mon-Eags (lion, monkey, and eagle, with donkey tails). Not to mention the Gump (made from two couches, some palm fronds, a broom, and a taxidermed stag head).
The Draka's ghouloons, who are constructed from the genes of a baboon, a dog, and a human. They are actually sentient, and used as Cannon Fodder. To some extent, the post-human Homo Drakensis race itself qualifies, as the Draka used traces of feline DNA to increase muscle strength and sense acuity.
Most of the animals on Skeeve's home dimension of Klah, from the Myth Adventures series, appear to be this trope, at least to judge by their names (e.g. 'spider-bear').
In Leviathan, something like half the countries in Europe rely on these for the vast majority of their technology.
The Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland is supposed to be "the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from." In Real Life, that would be a calf's head, so Tenniel's illustration gave the Mock Turtle one, with hooves and tail to match, placed on the body of a turtle.
What do you call a giant creature with bat wings and a squid's face with tentacles and batrachian eyes?
Most of the main characters in Maximum Ride are arguably this. Even if you don't count the human/avian and human/lupine hybrids, there are still the Krelp. Not to mention some... interesting creatures given rather more detail in the "manga" version.
Some of the insects in the Bugs in a Box series pop-up books by David A. Carter appear to be either vertebrate animals, plants, or inanimate objects with insect body parts.
The Wingdingdilly, which is about a dog that was turned into a chimera as a result of a magic spell cast upon him by a witch.
The Dr. Seuss book Horton Hatches the Egg ends with the egg Horton the Elephant was taking care of hatching into a tiny elephant with wings.
Although the main character of The Chronicles of Professor Jack Baling initially assumes the insect/shrimp creature at the end of the second episode is the combination of several different animals, it’s actually just a modified mantis shrimp [1]. Although, the name makes it clear that they do resemble a combination of those two animals.
Also, since monsters in Merlin tend to be creatures from medieval heraldry or Arthurian legends, Mix-and-Match Critters appear at least twice a season.
Power Rangers has had a few, since because of the rubber suit, all of them have to be humanoid. Most notable is one in the first season, right after Tommy joined, that was part turtle and part...traffic light?
Kratts' Creatures has Ttark, an animated creature who is a combination of a mammal, a reptile, and a bird.
The Chimera(who resembles a three-headed monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent) is probably the most prominent of these, to the extent that a number of works of fiction use "Chimera" as a generic term for Mix And Match Critters of all sorts.
Many mythological creatures - the Chimera, the Minotaur, the Sphinx, the griffin, Harpies, centaurs, Pegasus, Sleipnir (although he's a mash-up of a horse and... another horse), Cerberus (who sometimes had a snake for a tail), the Unicorn...
Some scientists believe that the dragon is itself a mix-and-match creature that was deeply ingrained into our psychology through evolution, which would explain why so many different cultures feature some kind of dragon. The theory states that the dragon is a combination of mankind's animal enemies. The body comes from dangerous snakes and other reptiles. The maw comes from big cats. The talons come from birds of prey. The wings come from bats, etc.
As for fire, animals instinctively fear fire. Humans have largely conquered that fear by conquering fire, but it still crept into the subconscious.
They also saw extensive use in heraldry, along with many other Mix-and-Match Critters that lacked a basis in classic myth.
The Peluda was a dragon from France that had the head, neck, and tail of a snake, the body of a green porcupine, and the feet of a turtle. Much nastier than it sounds - it could breathe acid and fire, its quills were toxic and could be flicked at prey, had a special taste for young women and children and the only way to kill it was cutting off its tail.
Parodied in Discworld, "Gods are human-shaped. Even Offler the crocodile god is only crocodile headed. Ask humans to imagine an animal god and they'll come up with someone in a really bad mask."
Ammut the Devourer was depicted as having the head of a crocodile, the forequarters of a leopard or lioness, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus -- three vicious and deadly creatures (Hippos, while vegetarian, are incredibly strong and fiercely territorial, and responsible for more deaths in Africa than lions). Jackal-headed Anubis weighed your heart against the Feather of Truth: if it was heavier, he'd toss it to Ammut.
Two-headed dogs seem to be very common, possibly as a lesser version of Cerberus. They are already present in Greek Mythology, e.g. Geryon's watchdog Orthus from the tale of Heracles.
Most of the monsters from Greek myth were siblings. That is, all those that didn't have some other origin story were.
Both Orthus and Cerberus must have been insanely jealous of three of their other siblings: the Khimera, the Lernaean Hydra that started out with nine heads and could generate more, and Ladon, a dragon with 100 heads. At least they beat out the Nemean Lion (not Mix and Match) and the Sphinx (indeed Mix and Match).
Both of whom are beaten out by daddy dearest, Typhon, who had a hundred serpent's heads--ON EACH HAND.
Actually, in some sources, Orthrys wasn't Kerberos's brother...well, not full brother. He was his half-brother...and father (Ekidne was mother to them both).
The peryton is a man-eating half-bird, half-deer creature from Atlantis that casts a human shadow. For this reason it was believed that it was a human soul trapped inside a monstrous body.
In a deliberate subversion, 16th-century Italian author Ludovico Ariosto created the hippogriff -- a beast that is part griffin and part horse -- for his epic Orlando Furioso as a joke on a line from the Roman poet Virgil which used "when griffins are mated with horses" as a synonym for "impossible" or "never". Although it never was truly "mythological" it is considered so today.
Hippogriffs have appeared in Flash Gordon, Dungeons and Dragons, Warcraft and, of course, Harry Potter.
One of Dream's three guards in The Sandman is described as a hippogriff but is drawn as a Pegasus-type winged horse.
Older Than Dirt: The earliest civilizations, such as Sumer, the Indus Valley, Minoan Crete, and Ancient Egypt, had various mix-and-match beasts such as griffins, lamassu, leogryphs, serpopards, sirrush, and winged snakes. The early Sumerians had gods that were part man and part fish. And some sculptures found in villages older than the first cities also reflect this motif.
Numerous Iranian mythological creatures were in this style. Their gryphon was quite popular (and likely originated from Aryan aka Iranian peoples), but one of the main ones was the senmurv, or Simurgh, a bird with the head of a dog and the claws of a lion.
The Shedu / Lamassu of ancient Sumeria were heavenly protective deities with the head of a man or woman, wings, and the body of bull or lion and were seen as servants of higher gods and protectors of households. Historians believe they later had a large influence on the creation of the lore about the sphinx, Arabian Djinn, Judeo-Christian Angels (particularly the Cherubs), and the worldwide practice of placing gargoyles on buildings. Also, one of Gilgamesh's greatest feats was defeating Isthar's pet Shedu.
From the Book of Revelation, chapter 13:1 "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. 2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority."
And from the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 1:5-11 5 "Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. 6 And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. 7 And their feet were straight [4] feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass. 8 And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings. 9 Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward. 10 As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle. 11 Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched [5] upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies."
Ezekiel 41:18-19 18 "And it was made with cherubim and palm trees, so that a palm tree was between a cherub and a cherub; and every cherub had two faces; 19 So that the face of a man was toward the palm tree on the one side, and the face of a young lion toward the palm tree on the other side: it was made through all the house round about."
The Tikbalang from Philippine mythology is a mix of horse and human. It has the body of a man and the head and feet of a horse. Its legs are so long that when it sits down, its knees are above its head. Some legends also give it a mane of spikes. Find the right one and you can control the beast and ride it through the sky.
A Chinese dragon is said to have the head of a camel, horns of a deer, eyes of a demon, neck of a snake, belly of a clam, scales of a carp, claws of an eagle, palms of a tiger, and ears of a cow.
The Ars Goetia portrays many of the demons bound by Ham and Solomon as manifesting in this way. Examples are Zagan and Haagenti (gryphon-winged bulls...although how you're supposed to tell those are gryphon wings and not eagle wings is anyone's guess), Marchosias (she-wolf with a snake's tail and gryphon wings), and Ipos (lion with a goose's feet and head and a hare's tail).
In German, there's the common term of the Eierlegende Wollmilchsau or egg laying wool-milk-sow, the holy grail of farmers and by extension any manufacturing business. One animal (or product) that produces absolutely everything and adresses anything the customer might wish for. Some people made pictures of it.
The worst of all? The Tarasque. It had the head of a lion, the body of a bull, the shell of a tortoise covered in spikes, six bear legs, and the tail of a serpent with a fish's fin. Doesn't much look like its D&D counterpart.
Bloom County had Rosebud the basselope, a basset hound/antelope mix. A tryst with Hodge-podge resulted in, of course, Jackabasselopes.
Woody Allen describing the Great Roe, which has "the head of a lion and the body of a lion, although not the same lion".
Mocked by comedian Demetri Martin in his "visual enhancers" act, in which he declared that you could make a fantasy animal by taking any existing animal and adding wings. He gave as examples Pegasus (horse) and the griffin (lion)... and then a hawk, displaying a picture of a four-winged hawk saying "I'm awkward."
Further parodied when he suggested creatures no one ever heard about, like a mermaid that's half fish but split vertically instead of horizontally. Another was the "Zebratard" who was 1/2 zebra, 1/2 hawk, 1/2 pig and thus was an improper fraction.
Look at an old Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual sometime. The Displacer Beast (a six-legged panther with tentacles on its shoulders that is never where you see it; interestingly, it was derived from Coeurl, the villain of a 1920s/1930s sci-fi short story) and Owlbear (guess!) spring to mind. The new Monster Manuals continue this fine tradition with such gems as the Howler Wasp (half-wasp, half-monkey) and Yak-People.
A few more examples: some were specifically stated to be the result of wizard experiments, some had no origin given.
That's not the worst of it. One article on this in Dragon (magazine) has armadillephant, dragonfly turtle, duckbunny, moat cat (newt+puma), spider-horse, and venom dog (mastiff+scorpion). Why duckbunny? Just because it's a good idea to practice with something less deadly than owlbears.
As of 3rd Edition, templates made it easy for DMs to Mix And Match their own custom-made game critters.
The cavalcade of "Half-Something" templates combined with the weird sense of humor gamers tend to have ensures that whatever can be spawned with D&D 3+ tools will be spawned. Whatever cannot be spawned, thanks to the stated rules, will be spawned anyway -- but put in separate cage with the disclaimer "it cannot be made because of rules, but if it could, it would be like that". The clear implication being that nothing but limitations in rules prevents things like the Half-Dragon Werewolf, the Ooze Vampire, or the Angel/Demon.
The Fighting Fantasy gamebook Citadel of Chaos featured two monsters: one with a wolf's head and an ape's body, the other precisely the reverse.
Magic: The Gathering uses a lot of the same Mix-and-Match Critters as does Dungeons and Dragons (above), but outdid themselves in the Alliances set, with the Phelddagrif--a winged hippo with a lot of weird abilities. They later came out with Questing Phelddagrif.
The Phelddagrif, mind, is a deliberate in-joke. Its name is an anagram of 'Garfield, Ph. D.' after the creator of Magic. That said, Magic has played with the 'build your own creature from individual parts' concept from time to time -- the chimeras from Visions come to mind, for one.
This is actually the point of auras and equipment, but auras have the unfortunate card disadvantage, in that, yes, putting Holy Strength on your Benalish Hero takes its toughness up to three, but a Lightning Bolt (which does three damage) will kill it and your Holy Strength, whereas if you'd played (say) another creature, you'd still have a creature.
Magic also has pegasi, merfolk, human/elephant loxodons, human/lion leonin, human/tiger nacatl (nacatli?), human/bird aven (and Winged Humanoid angels), werewolves (which are a major race in Innistrad), and, anything in Phyrexia, such as Tsabo's spidery cybernetic legs. When Phyrexia is done, you will be an example as well.
Shadowrun 4th Edition has this, with more rules on Mix-and-Match Critters given in Running Wild. This includes critters who are dangerously magical, technomantic, or cybered.
The Alien Wars supplement for 5th edition Hero System gives us the Xenovores, originally created via genetic manipulation to survive a nuclear holocaust no matter what. If they encounter a new race that has a potentially useful trait, expect a new subrace of Xenovores to show up soon with that trait.
The tizn'ts of Low Life are sentient mashups of... pretty much anything. The race's name comes from an attempt to categorize them, as in: "Tizn't a Bodul, tizn't a Horc, tizn't a toy car, tizn't a rubber ducky, tizn't a..."
Disney's The Wuzzles, somehow making insect/mammal creatures cute and cuddly, rather than an unholy vision from H.R. Giger's nightmares.
'Magna Morph' toys are animals made of separate body parts held together by magnets, and so can be disassembled and reassembled into interesting combinations. Stephen Colbert pointed out that the set includes a grizzly bear and a bald eagle, which means it's theoretically possible to create a Greagle - "Aah! Kill it! Kill it!"
According to the back-story of the Jurassic Park 'Chaos Effect' toy line, InGen hybridized various extinct species (whose genetic material was presumably just lying around) because why the hell not? Most fans disliked the premise and considered this a "very ugly" toy line (the garish paint jobs didn't help), but they did have a cult following.
Somehow they combined a Pteranodon with an Ankylosaurus and made it awesome. Other creatures in the series include:
And the impressively ridiculous "Ultimasaurus", which is essentially the most fearsome parts of every nonhuman Jurassic Park resident combined. The toy was never produced, but fanart of the critter can be seen in Iririv's gallery below and here.
Bionicle had the Rahi Nui, a critter who we only know by its description, since it was never released as a toy. Nevertheless, the animals that make it up were available at one time, so we can guess what it might look like: its head is that of a Kane-Ra bull, it has the body and back legs of a Muaka tiger (which doesn't actually have back legs), the powerful arms of a Tarakava lizard, the wings of a Nui-Rama wasp and the stinger tail of a Nui-Jaga scorpion.
This is the entire concept of Impossible Creatures, a Real Time Strategy game wherein you can make an entire army of chimeras from your choice of a few dozen base animals.
Dingodile and Rilla Roo of the Crash Bandicoot series, both anthropomorphic, are near-equal parts dingo and crocodile, and gorilla and kangaroo, respectively.
The now-defunct epilogue of CTR said that Dingodile went on to form him own highly successful business which made even more of them, including the Gir-Bat, Kanga-Rooster and Dingo-Rilla. "Combine them all", indeed.
The newer games has mix and match critters in the form of the mutants. Examples of such are the Scorporilla (Scorpion/Gorilla), the Snipe (Fox/Tropical Bird) the Rhinoroller (Rhino/Armadillo) and the Battler...which is half Bat, half Switch Blade!
Many creatures in Jak and Daxter. One of the main characters is an Ottsel (otter-weasel), and there are yakows (yak-cow), crocadogs (crocodile-dog), monkaws (monkey-macaw) and hiphogs (hippo-hog) running around.
Mother 3 provides the page image, with some of its many Chimarae; bio-engineered animal hybrids that are the standard mooks for most of the game. Some of the crazier ones, like the Cattlesnake and Pigtunia, aren't shown in the above image.
Neutral and Dark "Run Type" Chao resemble Sonic and Shadow respectively, with blue or black striped head spines. Also, it's possible to make one look like freakin' CHAOS.
The Sonic the Hedgehog series also has Fang the sniper (aka Nack the Weasel), who is a purple-furred bounty hunter and is (in Japan anyway) half weasel, and half wolf. He is sometimes referred to as a "weasel-wolf" by fans.
Part of the appeal of Spore is the ability to build your own Mix-and-Match Critters, among other possibilities.
The online game Dragonfable inflicted the Dreaded Chickencow upon the world. Head, wings, breast, and front legs of a chicken, hindquarters of a cow; all of which adds up to the meat industries' dreams manifested in flesh.
The Final Fantasy series features mole-bats, or moguri, known in English as Moogles. The fact that they end up looking more like teddy bears than anything else can be chalked up to the Rule of Cute.
Warcraft games contain many mythological mix and match critters, such as gryphons, hippogryphs and chimaeras. Then there are wyverns, which are lions with batlike wings and scorpion tails, magnataurs (essentially a wooly mammoth centaur) and zhevras(zebras with a small horn on their forehead). There's also creatures that look mostly like real-world ones but with few parts added, like giraffes with gazelle-style horns and crocolisks (6-legged crocodiles).
Always found it odd that the Warcraft games call those flying lion-scorpion beings wyverns when they are quite clearly manticores.
World of Warcraft includes Moonkin, which are owlbears, as well. Druid characters are shapeshifters, and if one takes the offensive spellcasting talents, you can change into one.
WoW also has the wolpertinger. It has the body, head, feet, and tail of a hare... and fangs, wings, and antlers. They can also only be seen when drunk...
Yoshi is supposed to be a dinosaur... with a turtle-like shell that doubles as a saddle, a chamelon/froglike tongue that swallows everything, and has been known to grow (feathered) wings and breathe fire... and he wears boots.
Bowser is commonly confused to be a dragon-turtle, but he's actually designed to be an ox-turtle. Miyamoto originally envisioned him to be an ox, but his staff convinced him to make Bowser a turtle instead. Bowser's final design merged the two creatures.
Quite a few of the hatchable animals in Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, including a kangaroo/lion, a sheep/camel/ostritch, a monkey/bat, a cheetah/gazelle, and a rhino/bird...thing.
If the Mario and Zelda franchises are not enough for Mix-and-Match Critters, take Pokemon for example, it has Mix-and-Match Critters of its own, especially plant/animal hybrids under the Grass type.
You get the chance to play as one of these in EVO Search for Eden, since the game lets you mix and match creature parts.
Gauntlet (1985 video game): Dark Legacy's Chimera: A lion's body with dragon wings and eagle talons instead of claws, with three heads: A snake, a lion, and an eagle, to correlate with the three types of Gargoyles and their elements (Poison, Fire, and Electricity, respectively.)
In Return to Mysterious Island, Mina must get past a sea creature with a crocodile-like head and a shark's body. Possibly it's meant to be an ichthyosaur, but if so, the designers put its tail on upside-down.
Fallout: New Vegas has Nightstalkers, the result of an experiment in splicing coyote and rattlesnake DNA.
Fallout 1 & 2 have the pigrat as well. Also, the deathclaw is a mixture of Jackson's chameleon and various 'other species'.
The Sea Creatures of Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay. They have the head of a sea horse, the body and shell of a turtle, the fins and flippers of a fish, and the large bulb antenna of an angler fish. And their calls are... kind of weird.
The Katamari series (specifically We ♥ Katamari and Katamari Forever) has the Cowbear (infamous for being one of the harder items to roll up) which consists of the upper half of a bear and the lower half of a cow.
Muut from Gunnerkrigg Court is shown as a human with the head and feet of an owl (the original character from Cahuilla Native American myth was just a giant owl). Gunnerkrigg Court has also featured the classical Minotaur as a character.
Sarah Ellerton's followup project, The Phoenix Requiem, also has Dakor. This time, she left out the humanoid and just made wolves with goat horns.
Triquetra Cats takes this trope to the extreme with Splio Beasts -- animals which are ultimately the genetic crossbreed of every known member of the animal kingdom all mixed into one.
In Irritability, Exoth keeps a stock of modular chimaera parts in one of his labs that can just be snapped together.
El Goonish Shive with its chimerae and Shapeshifting devices which is taken to another level involuntarily with Vlad/Vladia being created from DNA from several bats, owls, hawks and even a leopard in addition to human and an alien and voluntarily with Grace who can mix and match aspects from any and all of her continually growing number of forms. Also, this critter in filler.
The Princess Planet often have whole strips devoted to Princess Christi and other princesses trying to outdo each other by showing all ever weirder Mix-and-Match Critters than the other.
Eight Bit Theater: I'm sorry, no I won't take it. If we accept orc zombies, then we open the gate to all kinds of crap. What's next? Centaur dragons? How about demon fairies? Maybe buffalo elves? Heck, why not whale vultures?
Homestuck: Mooks encountered in the Medium (imps, ogres, basilisks, etc) assume various combinations of features (and included powers) from the players' prototyped sprites when they enter; in the kids' session it's a mix of harlequin outfits from Nannaquin, wings and a sword from Seppukrow, cat features and tentacles from Jaspers, dog features and various levels of Reality Warper powers from Becquerel. The royalty of Prospit and Derse take on all the prototyped features at once through their Requisite Royal Regalia, and any Prospitian or Dersite can use said regalia. This is taken to an extreme in the trolls' session when they accumulate twelve separate prototype features including some nearly gamebreaking psychic abilities that made the Black King almost unbeatable.
Humanimals, one of Hussie's earlier works, was entirely devoted to exploring this trope and all its potential Mundane Utility implications -- as well as subtle, playful satire of Furry Fandom. Equius's lusus Aurthour and some of Dirk's work are a Shout-Out to this.
Spontaneous Combustion has Swift, Gabriella, and the recently announced "badger-squirrels" that are all animal combinations. Swift is a variety of fast creatures (cats and rodents can be seen) and Gabriella is an amoeba-girl (and an oxymoron).
Speaks with Monsters answers the question "what do griffons (half-eagle, half-lion) eat?" with pescazelles, half-trout, half-gazelle.
Order of the Stick, which is explicitly set in a world based on Dungeons and Dragons, naturally takes this one on.
In a later strip, Roy questions the existence of a brontosaurus, and is told that if gryphons can exist, why not an apatosaurus with the head of a camarasaurus?
Beyond the Canopy has spider crabs which (unlike Real Life spider crabs) are giant spiders with crab claws. There's also a brief appearance by deer that have small trees in place of antlers.
Dissonance takes a relatively realistic approach to this--Pandora has traits of three different kinds of caniform, in addition to traits not typically found in that suborder, but it's definitely its own creature rather than a mix of the others. The protagonists are currently clueless as to what it could have evolved from (having dismissed genetic engineering, and only joked about aliens.)
Lots of "fursonas" are this way, to the extent that there are bird-mammal hybrids, or fish-mammal hybrids, or insect-mammal hybrids. For whatever reason, part-wolves and part-Blue Jays tend to be especially popular, with griffon-like Jay/Wolves essentially being the Holy Grail of animal avatars.
In a somewhat similar vein to the above example, the Furry Fandom roleplay City of Unity has this as a major plot point; As maintained by the Orwellian government, Hybrids, or Uni-Class, (50/50 mix of two species) are held as the next step in evolution over the purebred Outer Class. (single species)
ZOOFIGHTS features a few of these, notably the infamous SwanMass (it kept absorbing things and just wouldn't die) and Heart of Darkness/Hyperfauna (who might also be SwanMass).
Rather Good Flash animation "Zoology Dragon" that is about a Dragon that combines animals... Into cubes.
Hellraptor has made a lot of these, including the Spinosaur-Alien and a Tyrannosaurus/spider/scariest parts of everything ever hybrid
The Valley of Siyyon, populated as it is with Centaurs, pretty much lends itself to this kind of thing. Which leads to such characters as and Elephantaur, Turtletaur and -yes- a Hydrataur.
Some UniCreatures are hybrids, including Capricious (goat/dragon,) Felic ("cowbunnyhorse") and Diani (deer/wolf.)
The SCP Foundation has carefully secured this former barn. It can even create mix-and-match plant life.
It's very common to find people on Pokémon forums and art sites who like to do "Pokémon sprite splices", in which two or more Pokémon sprites are taken and edited to create a hybrid of said Pokémon. These splices range from ANYTHING to Pikquaza, to Eevedactyl to Mewgong to Bulbatres.
At Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe, stuff like this is a common problem among the students. Diamondback is half human, half twenty foot long snake. Harpy is... a harpy. Psydoe is half deer. Gila is half lizard. Razorback is half velociraptor.
The Dino Pirahna in Episode 8 of Bowser's Kingdom is the offspring of Steve the Pirhana Plant and a Dino Rhino.
Avatar: The Last Airbender. Oh, boy, where to begin? The series initially had a few hybrid animals among those that just looked slightly different from real ones, but they became more of the norm as the series went on. The writers officially stopped pretending they were doing otherwise when we first saw a "Platypus Bear", which is exactly what it sounds like (and probably a tribute to the aforementioned Owlbear). The same episode also gives us what we must assume is a turducken.
Earlier designs of Appa, the other Team Pet, a flying bison, were a mix between a bison and a manatee, only with six legs.
And the actual series had the slightly less nightmarish but still pretty scary buzzard wasps. In other words, goddamned wasps the size of a freaking vulture.
Bigger than vultures - think more along the lines of, say, a cow. A cow-sized wasp with a vulture's head and talons.
There are "koala otters" (creatures with sea otter bodies and koala heads that are extremely cute) living in the waters around the Northern Water Tribe.
This is a particularly odd example, as other fruits and vegetables - melons, mangoes, eggplants, cabbage, apples, and many more - have shown up completely unaltered.
"Appa's Lost Days" has a shot of a jackalope. As well as a Boarcupine, which is pretty much what the name says it is and every bit as badass (it fought the ten-ton Appa and was holding its own).
Sokka mentions hunting arctic hippo, which many have assumed to be a cross between a hippo and a polar bear.
Tiger Seals: Slightly disappointing, as they looked more like striped seals than actual seal/tiger hybrids.
Badger frog: Seen in "The Western Air Temple". Zuko talks to it while practicing what he's going to say to Team Avatar after his Heel Face Turn.
Turtle-ducks: Young Zuko is seen feeding a mother turtle-duck and her babies with his mother. Secretly, they are his favorite animals.
Rat Viper: A hybrid between a viper and a rat, used in a proverb similar to our own "two-headed snake". Particularly interesting since rats are a viper's main diet.
Aang meets a ancient giant lion turtle posing as an island, who teaches him the art of energy-bending.
Turtle-seals: Seals with turtle shells on their backs, of course (kind of like turtle-ducks). One was padding along at the back of a stampede of zoo animals (providing some interesing Mood Whiplash of a sort) in "Tales of Ba Sing Se".
And there's more... The real kicker is that Mix-and-Match Critters are such a common reality in the Avatar universe, that the main characters actually show a bit of shock upon hearing a "normal" animal (the Earth King's pet brown bear) exists in "City of Walls and Secrets".
The fact that they're given portmanteau names implies that there are (or were) "pure" versions of all the animals mentioned (not just the bear), although they seem to be relatively rare or even extinct. There's a bit of Fridge Logic when you wonder how the hell they knew that a platypus isn't a Mix and Match Critter.
Even weirder: if you pay attention you'll notice that almost all animals in the regular Avatar world are Mix-and-Match Critters -- but all of the animals from the Spirit World aren't! Hei Bei was a giant panda, Wan Shi Tong was a giant owl (but see below), the knowledge seekers that work in the Spirit Library are foxes, the moon and ocean spirits took the form of koi fish, and we also see a wolf and a talking baboon. That has some odd implications...
Altogether, this has led to some Wild Mass Guessing theories that the Avatar-verse is actually Earth or a human space colony in the far future. The animals are results of genetic experimentation, as could bending, with aid from magic. People have then extrapolated that said colony had problems with The End of the World as We Know It; after the holocaust, people rebuilt, and memories of Asian culture and the old 'pure' forms of animals gave the world the show has today.
Descendents of rediscovered Sky Bison, and Ringtailed Winged Lemurs, close cousins to Flying Lemur Momo, live on Air Temple Island.
Biker Mice From Mars has Fred the mutant, who has a duck's foot, a bear's foot, a human arm for his right arm, an octopus tentacle for his left arm and three eyes.
In Transformers: Beast Wars, Fuzors are Transformers who turn into Mix-and-Match Critters. They include a wolf-eagle and a scorpion-cobra (no points for guessing who took what side). The television series explained this as a result of technical problems that occurred when they were scanning for new forms.
They were an entire sub-group when it came to the toyline. There were some weird combinations, but Injector took the cake as a lionfish/hornet. Injector is also one of the most notirous shelfwarmers of all time.
South Park has done it several times, including the half-squirrel half-chicken, Scuzzlebutt (looks like Beast but has Patrick Duffy for a leg among other things...) and ManBearPig (although ManBearPig is supposedly fiction created by Al Gore).
Doubly subverted in one episode. They try to splice pig and elephant DNA, despite having heard that song by Loverboy. They don't get a pig/elephant hybrid. It looks like a normal pig. But...its face looks like Mr. Garrison.
An early Fleischer Studios Superman cartoon had the Man of Steel pitted against the Hawk People, a Winged Humanoid species with bird heads, and strong enough to give Supes trouble.
The title charcter of Chowder and Panini are both a cross between a cat, bear, and rabbit. However, the original idea for the Chowder design was to look like some sort of squeeze toy.
In "Son Of Celice", Orko accidentally creates a chimpanzee with a rabbit's head when he means to summon a gift for the king of Tahrin.
The Simpsons has fun with this, with the Esquilax, a horse with the head of a rabbit... and the body of a rabbit. Oh look, it's galloping away!
Played straight in one Treehouse of Horror episode where Homer gets turned into a bizarre creature with a fish's head, a donkey's ears, a pair of brooms for hands, and a chicken's body.
Most of the jokes on Tex Avery's The Farm of Tomorrow consist of bizarre cross-breeding experiments such as an ostrich with a chicken (for bigger drumsticks), a duck with a banana (you peel the feathers off instead of plucking) and a dove with a high chair (a stool pigeon).
Kim Possible villain DNAmy loves plush toy Mix-and-Match Critters called "Cuddlebuddies" (like pandaroo) and makes living ones with Lego Genetics.
She used her knowledge of genetics to create a cat-snake, rabbit-rhino, chicken and pig men, a lobster dog, a poodle-gorilla, a naked-mole man (from Rufus and Mr. Barkin), and supervillain Monkeyfist.
If you look closely, you can see she wears an otter-fly brooch on the front of her top, one of her favorite cuddle-buddies.
In the Sushi Pack episode "Near Miss", Paradoxter, himself a man-ox of unknown origin, creates the Animixter Ray that combines two animals into one amalgam. The animals all go back to normal once it is broken, though.
Just in case humanoid turtles (and a rat, a rhinoceros, a boar, a gecko...) didn't qualify, the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series had an episode where the Villain of the Week was a Mad Scientist that bred Mix-and-Match Critters to be his slaves (a gorilla-bison was among the examples).
And Zoidberg. His species, the Decapodians, are hybrids of every sea creature there is--crab claws, cuttlefish for heads, ink-squirting, moltable shells, and then there's the dozens of larval stages they go through, including lampreys, trilobites, sea urchins, clams, and even anglerfish.
They even have a sponge or coral phase. And when they mate, the males display their crest, but when you get lucky, you're really unlucky: All those who mate die.
The "something that doesn't exist" from the Phineas and Ferb opening theme is a half-turtle, half-unicorn with webbed hind legs.
The Bango-ru dolls from "The Chronciles of Meap: More than Meaps the Eye" are apparently like custom-made Wuzzles. Stacy orders an adorable bunny-bear, while Candace orders a Bango-ru that's half-cow, half-frog, which... didn't turn out so well.
Not to mention the ridiculous unicorn-squid-a-girl-loch-ness-monster thing that Candace gets temporarily turned into in the Sir Ferb-a-Lot episode. Too many transfiguration potions = bad idea. Not that it was on purpose...
Alfe from The Problem Solverz is supposed to be part human, part dog, and part anteater, although he doesn't really resemble any of those.
Season one of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has featured a manticore (in episode 2), a griffin (in episode 5), and a cockatrice (in episode 17). Discord, the villain of the season 2 premiere "The Return of Harmony", is a vaguely dragon-like creature called a "Draconequus" with the head of a pony and a mish-mash of other animal parts, including a pair of mismatched antlers, a lion's paw, an eagle's talon, and a snake's tail.
Penny, Gumball's girlfriend from The Amazing World of Gumball, is an anthropomorphic peanut with antlers.
The inhabitants of Tulgey Wood from Alice in Wonderland, which include Bread-and-Butterflies, Rocking-Horseflies, Dog-and-Caterpillars, pencil birds, hammer birds, umbrella birds, cage birds, mirror birds, glasses birds, accordion owls, honker ducks, cymbal frogs, timpani frogs, and a broom dog.
One scene in Duck Amuck had the animator erase Daffy Duck's entire body, leaving only his head. Daffy then gets angry at him and tells him to draw his body back. The animator doesn't listen, and as a result he instead redraws Daffy as a bizarre quadruped with a flower-shaped head, mismatched feet, and a flagpole for a tail, with Daffy's flag displaying a screw and a ball. The animator then draws a mirror in front of Daffy, causing him to freak out after seeing his reflection.
The platypus, an animal originally considered so bizarre that it was dismissed as a hoax. It seems fairly benign today, but imagine someone in 1798 receiving pelts of a creature that looked like equal parts duck, beaver and otter that also laid eggs. And that was before the male was discovered to be venomous.
The platypus injects its venom through the spurs on its FEET. While not stolen from another animal, it is still a damn freaky thing to do.
One of the reasons for the skepticism of scientists was the abundance of fake taxidermied fantastic beasts. Collectors of stuffed deer heads and bearskin rugs looking for something more exotic and you can't get them a giraffe or lion? No problem, just take some bits and pieces from some different animals and sew them together. No one will know the difference. That's why scientists must have inspected every inch of the first few platypus specimens for stitching.
Ancient Greek texts described the "cameleopard", a creature with the body of a camel and the markings of a leopard. What they were actually describing was the long-necked, "spotted" giraffe.
Furthermore, the Greeks and Romans believed the spotted leopard itself was born from a mating of a lion, or "leo" and a black panther, or "pard". Yeah, as wise as the Classical civilizations were, they knew squat about zoology.
Speaking of the Greeks, in the unknown land, anything goes. People with dogs' heads, people walking on their hands...
It was believed for a long time that African and Asian elephants couldn't interbreed. This was proved wrong by the rather unexpected pregnancy of an Asian female in a zoo where the only males were the African variety. The resulting offspring, born in 1978, had physical traits of both varieties, but unfortunately died of septicaema aged 12 days.
Ligers (bred for their skills in magic, of course) and tigons. (And bears, oh my!) Hoo-boy, let's not even start on hybrid cats.
But let's start on the ligers' less fictious claims to awesomeness: mane (the beard of the animal kingdom), golden striped color scheme, being twice the size of a tiger, and gentle demeanor.
Kirk Cameron's fictitious "Crocoduck", which he believes scientists believe would be the ultimate proof of evolution.
Hmm.... snout filled with nasty teeth and a long, powerful tail, but at the same time bipedal and feathers? Wait, we have something like that. It's called a dinosaur (more specifically, a theropod, and if you want to get really specific, only maniraptoran theropods have vaned feathers).
Anatosuchus, a small extinct crocodile with an unusually broad snout has since, rather cheekily, been nicknamed the "Crocoduck".
Also cheekily, the gag Golden Crocoduck Award is now granted to whichever creationist whackjob is caught on film making the year's stupidest argument against evolution.
Some biologists hypothesize that some animals that undergo metamorphosis do so due to hybridization in their evolutionary past eg. Luidia sarsi a "jellyfish" that becomes a starfish.
A "jellyfish" is not any animal that happens to be transparent -- that larvae has bilateral symmetry and three tissue layers for crying out loud! The only scientist who has this point of view is Williamson and it is increasingly likely that he's a crackpot - see the review of "The Origins of Larvae" by Greg Rouse.
Actual experiments conducted recently. Implanting a human-shaped ear on a mouse? Sure. Firefly-tobacco hybrid - a leaf that glows in the dark? Why not? With current technology we could go much further were it not for those pesky ethical considerations.
The Charles R. Knight reconstruction of the dinosaur Agathaumas (now suspected to be the misidentified remains of another dinosaur) mashed the spiked frill of Styracosaurus with the three horns of Triceratops, despite the only fossil evidence being of the dinosaur's rear end.
On a similar note, the popular depiction of pterosaurs as some sort of crazy hybrid between Pteranodon and Ramphorhynchus.
According to a theory by one philosopher of ancient Greece, all animal parts appeared independently and were combined in different possible ways to form whole creatures, but natural selection pruned out all the silly combinations.
The Okapi; one of the few remaining giraffes that doesn't look like the tall blondes one thinksof when one hears the word. It has the body of a horse, the legs of a zebra, and the horns of a giraffe...
Speaking of Zebras, lets talk about Equines. Most people are familiar with what you get when a donkey and horse mate, a mule. But what happens when you cross-breed a Zebra with a horse or a donkey? You get a Zorse or Zedonk respectively.
The Blind Men and Elephant story from India, where a group of blind men mistook each part of an elephant they touched as belonging to separate things (body is a wall, tusks are a spear, trunk is a snake, ear is a fan, tail is a rope).
One well-known optical illusion depicts a creature that alternately resembles a duck or a rabbit, depending on whether you think of the long, paired structures on its head as a bill or as ears.
Looking closer at a mososaur, this troper thinks someone finally managed to take the badass qualities of a shark and a crocodile and combine into one badass dominant marine predator of the Cretacious period.
Chalicotheres looked like a pumped up-cross between a horse and a gorilla. Strangely, its closest relatives are the tapir and rhino.
The extinct glyptodont species, Doedicurus clavicaudatus look like if someone took an ankylosaurus and an armadillo (already two awesome animals by themselves) and combined them into an even more awesome one.
This trope is not Speculative Fiction at all, for horticulture: many plants for sale in nurseries and garden supply stores are actually a product of grafting, as when a beautiful-but-frail rosebush is fused to a hardy-but-unattractive rootstock.