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Series: The SFF Bestiary Archives - Reactor

Home / Columns / The SFF Bestiary

The SFF Bestiary

Judith Tarr looks at the whole range of SFF fauna, from the fantastical to the science-fictional, from unicorns and dragons to aliens of all sorts, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial. This series explores not only the weird and the wonderful but the apparently ordinary—finding new ways to look at animals we may all think we know.

Latest

detail from the cover of Hell's Heart by Alexis Hall

Hunting the Great White Whale-Thing on Jupiter

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Detail from the cover of Aliette de Bodard's Navigational Entanglements

Jellyfish in Space! — Aliette de Bodard’s Navigational Entanglements

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Photo of a Portuguese Man o' War above shallow water

Marine Life Weirder Than Space Aliens

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Underwater photo of several large pink jellyfish clustered together

 A Real-Life Monster Movie

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Photo of bioluminescent jellyfish

The Lore and the Weird Magic of the Jellyfish

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Unicorns and Horses

Some Thoughts on Tolkien’s Elf-Horses

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The Unexpected Horse Girls of Fantasy

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To Tame the Untamable Unicorn: Diana Peterfreund’s Killer Unicorns

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Cover of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

Beauties Which Pierce Like Swords: Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn

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SFF Bestiary Considers the Unicorn

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Welcome to SFF Bestiary!

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See All Unicorns and Horses

Dragons

A scene from House of the Dragon: Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) stands at a stone wall overlooking the sea while three dragons fly over the water.

House of the Dragon Redux: Dragons Gone Wild

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The Mother of Dragon Shows: House of the Dragon

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Dragon Lion Bee People: Martha Wells’ Raksura

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Love and Transformation: I Am Dragon

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Dragons Under the Seine: Aliette de Bodard’s Dominion of the Fallen

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Dragons, Dragons Everywhere: How to Train Your Dragon

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The Intrepid Lady Scholar: Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons

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The Dragon Prince, Ezran and dragon

A Feast of Magical Beasts: The Dragon Prince

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A World Full of Dragons: Naomi Novik’s Temeraire Series

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The Ultimate Fantasy Beast: The Dragon

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See All Dragons

Werewolves and Shifters

Love, Death, and Transformation: Diane Duane’s Deep Wizardry

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Shapeshifting as a Superpower in Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

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Screwball Comedy With Shapeshifters: Lia Silver’s Mated to the Meerkat

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The Ultimate Bodyguard: Zoe Chant’s Defender Cave Bear

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Shifter Romances, Dragon Style: Elva Birch’s Royal Dragons of Alaska

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Cozy Shapeshifters: Alyssa Day’s Tiger’s Eye Mysteries

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Expanding the Teen Shapeshifter Genre: Pixar’s Turning Red

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The Sum of Too Many Fears: Star Trek’s Changelings

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Big Cat, Big Trouble: Faith Hunter’s Raven Cursed

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Coyote Dreams: Patricia Briggs’ Iron Kissed

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Master of the Craft: Ilona Andrews’ Magic Bites

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American Narnia: T. Kingfisher’s Summer in Orcus

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See All Werewolves and Shifters

Mermaids and Selkies

A Plethora of Mermaids: The Mermaid (2021)

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Mermaids in the Desert: Kim Antieau’s Church of the Old Mermaids

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The Mermaid in the Tower: Aquamarine

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The Little Merman: F.T. Lukens’ In Deeper Waters

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Yemoja’s Child: Natasha Bowen’s Skin of the Sea

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Taking the Mermaid Tale Above and Beyond: Rivers Solomon’s The Deep

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It’s No Fun To Be Alone: Communicating With Cryptids in The Shape of Water

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I Dream the Curse and the Curse Dreams Me: Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch

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Mermaids of the Caribbean: Lisbon Okafor’s Ten-Cent Daisy

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Just a Frothy Little Bubble: Splash Tackles the Mermaid Genre

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Mortal and Immortal (Mer)Folk: Poul Anderson’s The Merman’s Children

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Two Versions of a Classic Fairy Tale: Disneyfying The Little Mermaid

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See All Mermaids and Selkies

Cryptids

Photo of a coelacanth underwater

When a Species Rises From the Dead: The Lazarus Taxon

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William Katt and Sean Young with a dinosaur puppet in Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend

Bringing Up Cryptids — Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend

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An outdated model of a sauropod as shown in MonsterQuest; illustration by paleo-artist Neave Parker

MonsterQuest Hunts the Mokele-Mbembe

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Illustration depicting a brontosaurus as an aquatic creature

A Creature From the Jungles of Africa: Tales of the Mokele-Mbembe

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Detail from the cover of Tongues of Serpents

Bunyips vs. Dragons: Naomi Novik’s Tongues of Serpents

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Phascolarctos cinereus -ZooParc de Beauval, France. Author frank wouters (CC-BY), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31676385

A Brief Interlude Down Under: Cryptids, Australian Style

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Illustration from Jenny Wagner’s The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek; art by Ron Brooks

Cryptids for Kids: The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek and Hector’s Bunyip

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Illustration of a "bunyip" from Childhood in Bud and Blossom; art by C.D. Richardson, 1900

A Beast of Myriad Forms: Researching the Bunyip

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Black and white illustration of a "bunyip", a creature described in Australian folklore

Australia’s Ancestral Cryptid: The Bunyip

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Illustration of two Tasmanian Tigers

Not Quite Lazarus: The Tasmanian Tiger

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Photo of a "jackalope", a taxidermied rabbit with red eyes and deer antlers

A Microgallery of Pull-Your-Leg Cryptids

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Vintage illustration of a black leopard

Big Cats in the UK: The Black Beast of Exmoor and Its Many Relatives

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See All Cryptids

Lake and River Monsters

Image of a CGI crocodile from the TV movie Lake Placid vs Anaconda

A Study in Monster-Movie Tropes: Lake Placid vs. Anaconda

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A giant snake attacks a boat in a scene from Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid

Monsters in the Jungle: Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid

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Photo of a green anaconda

Queen of the River Monsters: The Anaconda

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River Monsters host Jeremy Wade holds up a muskellunge, caught in a Canadian lake

A Real-World Lake Monster: River Monsters Goes Fishing at Eagle Lake

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Detail from the poster for Magic in the Water (1995) depicting a girl and the head of a lake monster in silhouette

A Lake Monster With Corporate Sponsorship

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Viral photo taken in 2022 supposedly showing the head of Ogopogo, a cryptid found in Canada's Lake Okanagan

Spirit of the Waters: Investigating the Creature of Lake Okanagan

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Canadian stamp showing an artist's depiction of the Ogopogo

The Myth Goes On: Boogeymen Investigates the Ogopogo

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Okanagan Lake, Home of Ogopogo

A Quick Survey of Canadian Lake Monsters

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She’s All That and Then Some: Steve Alten’s The Loch

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Angus (Alex Etel) sits beside a bathtub containing a juvenile water horse, in a scene from The Water Horse (2007)

A Boy and His Monster: The Water Horse (2007)

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Dr. Jonathan Dempsey (Ted Danson) sits at an array of computers and sonar displays in Loch Ness (1996)

Keeping the Mystery in Loch Ness (1996)

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Detail from the poster for The Loch Ness Horror, depicting a pleisiosaurus baring its sharp teeth

Nessie Strikes Back: The Loch Ness Horror (2023)

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See All Lake and River Monsters

Sea Creatures

detail from the cover of Hell's Heart by Alexis Hall

Hunting the Great White Whale-Thing on Jupiter

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Detail from the cover of Aliette de Bodard's Navigational Entanglements

Jellyfish in Space! — Aliette de Bodard’s Navigational Entanglements

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Comment number: 19
Photo of a Portuguese Man o' War above shallow water

Marine Life Weirder Than Space Aliens

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Comment number: 2
Underwater photo of several large pink jellyfish clustered together

 A Real-Life Monster Movie

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Photo of bioluminescent jellyfish

The Lore and the Weird Magic of the Jellyfish

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Image of a Greenland Shark swimming beside a human in a wetsuit holding an underwater camera

Down the Rabbit Hole: Searching for the Greenland Shark

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Illustration of the Greenland Shark from History of the Fishes of the British Islands (1877)

Oldest of the Old: The Greenland Shark

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Image of Ocean Ramsey swimming with a shark in the documentary Shark Whisperer

Up Close With Predators: Ocean Ramsey’s Shark Whisperer

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Underwater photo of a grey reef shark

Misunderstood Monsters: The Truth About Sharks

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Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering) wields a chainsaw against an incoming shark in a scene from Sharknado 2: The Second One

The Heirs of Jaws

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Chief Brody on the beach looking out in fear as a shark attack takes place in a scene from Jaws

Jaws: The Greatest Shark Epic of Them All

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Illustration of a giant oarfish

Meet the OG Sea Serpent: The Giant Oarfish

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See All Sea Creatures

Stand-Alone Essays

17th century etching depicting Hercules fighting the Lernaean Hydra

Who Wants to Live Forever?

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See All Stand-Alone Essays

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

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