Out-of-place wildlife in media

Alex Roman

Alex Roman

Well-Known Member
I have been fascinated by one of my favorite TV Tropes article, Misplaced Wildlife, and I have found various examples of such:

1.) "The Lion King" having Neotropical leafcutter ants in the theme song and also Neotropical giant anteaters at the end of "Oh I Just Can't Wait to be King that IMO, were stand-ins for or meant to be the actually African aardvarks.

2.) "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" having an Asian elephant and Australian kookaburra calls in Africa.

3.) Neotropical ocelots in "The Jungle Book 2", which is set in India.

4.) South American llamas in "Troy".

Speaking about "The Lion King", some African species don't even occur where the movie is set in East Africa. Meerkats, Timon's kind, originate in the dry desert areas of southern Africa; and mandrills (Rafiki) hail from the rainforests of western central Africa, so nobody in real life would observe both a mandrill and a meerkat in the wild in Kenya. Also, the okapis in the sequel, are a rainforest dweller from central Africa.

Feel free to share any examples of out-of-place wildlife in media, regardless whether it's mentioned in said TV Tropes article or not. It can be a live action series, western cartoon, anime, video game, board game, or even toy. (Capybaras in India, limpkins in New Zealand, bongo antelope in Brazil, tigers in Africa, etc.)

It can also be animals native to a certain continent, but on the wrong side. (Pygmy hippos and okapi in Tanzania, moose in Texas, giant pandas in India, etc.)

P.s.- IRL instances and invasive species (cane toads in Australia) don't count.
 
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Several Thai lakorns (soap operas) where loon calls occure as backround noise during night-time scenes inside jungle of montanous northern Thailand.
 
Alex Roman said:
To be fair, American robins have been seen in the UK as rare vagrants.
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Extremely rare. And the American Robin in Mary Poppins is nesting right outside the window of a London house!
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A zebras, Asian elephants, tigers, ostriches, spider monkeys, and more in the old Swiss Family Robinson. Sheeeesh :rolleyes:
 
Night at the Museum has a tufted capuchin in the Hall of African Mammals, which is even acknowledged as such in the films.

The live-action George of the Jungle films have macaws, toucans, an Asian elephant, orangutans, tigers, water buffalo, and more in an African jungle. The reboot of the cartoon they are based on has ring-tailed lemurs, marmosets, brown bears, giant pandas, tapirs, kangaroos, and more in the same setting.

Happy Feet Two has Magellanic and fairy penguins in Antarctica.

Madagascar shows a hummingbird on the titular island. We also see red-ruffed lemurs as background characters, which are restricted to a small part of northeastern Madagascar… ring-tailed lemurs such as King Julien are found only in the south and southwest.

I could go on…
 
evilmonkey239 said:
Night at the Museum has a tufted capuchin in the Hall of African Mammals, which is even acknowledged as such in the films.

The live-action George of the Jungle films have macaws, toucans, an Asian elephant, orangutans, tigers, water buffalo, and more in an African jungle. The reboot of the cartoon they are based on has ring-tailed lemurs, marmosets, brown bears, giant pandas, tapirs, kangaroos, and more in the same setting.

Happy Feet Two has Magellanic and fairy penguins in Antarctica.

Madagascar shows a hummingbird on the titular island. We also see red-ruffed lemurs as background characters, which are restricted to a small part of northeastern Madagascar… ring-tailed lemurs such as King Julien are found only in the south and southwest.

I could go on…
Click to expand...

More people ought to be aware that penguins exist outside of Antarctica, but not in the Arctic. There is even a species in southern Africa!
 
in the Madagascar movie why would they call it Madagascar there aren't lions, hippos, zebras and giraffes living there. and zootopia for just SO MANY REASONS!
 
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