List of aquatic humanoids

The bishop-fish, a piscine humanoid reported in Poland in the 16th century

Aquatic humanoids appear in legend and fiction. "Water-dwelling people with fully human, fish-tailed or other compound physiques feature in the mythologies and folklore of maritime, lacustrine and riverine societies across the planet.": 6 

Myth

"Ancient sea deities" have been regarded as the "earliest version of a human-fish hybrid". Creatures with a human torso and the tail of a fish appear in the myths of cultures around the world and persist in contemporary popular culture.: 6 

Piscine humanoids

Water-dwelling humanoids in legend and fiction have frequently been depicted with characteristics of fish.

Legend

Hoax

Fiction

Literature

Comics

Films

Games

Television

Amphibian humanoids

Humanoid-amphibian characters have "been noted across ancient mythologies and, [...] in medieval cryptozoology", as well as fiction of the Western canon and popular culture. The combination invokes notions of humans' animalistic past, and the tension between the two attributes is used to "conceive monstrous and horrifying" and absurd creatures.

Legend

Fiction

Literature

Comics

Films

Games

Television

Miscellaneous

Some water-dwelling humanoids in fiction and legend have been assigned characteristics of species other than amphibians or fish, or have been presented as "fully human formed aquatic humanoids".

Legend

Fiction

Literature

Cecaelia is a half human, half octopus.

Comics

Films

Games

Television

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 These creatures or characters have been described with piscine and/or other characteristics.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 These creatures have been described with fish-like and/or frog-like characteristics.

Citations

  1. ↑ Bane, Theresa (2016-05-04). Encyclopedia of giants and humanoids in myth, legend and folklore. McFarland. ISBN 9781476663517. OCLC 918874339.
  2. 1 2 3 Hayward, Philip (2017). Making a Splash: Mermaids (and Mermen) in 20th and 21st Century Audiovisual Media. John Libbey Publishing. ISBN 9780861969258.
  3. 1 2 Strozier, Scott (2022). Probable, Possible, Plausible - Explanatory Guide to Monsters and Myth. Dorrance Publishing. p. 161. ISBN 9781636613468.
  4. ↑ Maxwell, Melissa (2024). "Introduction". The Little Encyclopedia of Mermaids. Running Press. ISBN 9780762488377.
  5. 1 2 Bacchilega, Cristina; Brown, Marie Alohalani, eds. (2019). The Penguin Book of Mermaids. Penguin Books. p. xii. ISBN 9780143133728. Descriptions of the merbeing's fishy lower half tend to be generic, but there are a few notable exceptions. [...] human mixed with freshwater dolphin (or porpoise), dugong, or manatee bodies are found in the Amazon region. Other merbeings and water spritis are partly reptilian
  6. 1 2 Davisson, Zach (2024). Ultimate Guide to Japanese Yokai. Tuttle Publishing. p. 169. ISBN 9781462924776. a chimeric creature with a bird's beak, fish scales, long hair, and three finned feet
  7. ↑ Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica, Vol. I & II: Hymns and Incantations. Forgotten Books. p. 387. ISBN 1-60506-172-7.
  8. ↑ MacKenzie, Donald A. (1931). Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life — Studies in Race, Culture and Tradition. Blackie & Son. pp. 251–2. ISBN 9781444656367. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  9. 1 2 Vaughan, Alden T.; Vaughan, Virginia Mason (1991). Shakespeare's Caliban: A Cultural History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 13–14. ISBN 0-521-40305-7. two American critics have argued that "'Come, thou tortoise' tended to give a vague approximation of the shape of the deformity." More often, Caliban has been portrayed with fish rather than turtle attributes - scales, fins, and shiny skin - which reflect the critic's or artist's or actor's fixation on offhand epithets rather than the overwhelming evidence of Caliban's essentially human form.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Joshi 1999, p. 163.
  11. ↑ Chambers, Robert W. (1904). In Search of the Unknown. Harper & Brothers. Retrieved 2025-01-15. a man with round, fixed, fishy eyes, and soft, slaty skin. But the horror of the thing were the two gills that swelled and relaxed spasmodically, emitting a rasping, purring sound—two gasping, blood-red gills
  12. ↑ Bleiler 1990, pp. 46–47.
  13. 1 2 Lovecraft, H. P. (January 1942). The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Weird Tales. Retrieved 2025-01-16. their predominant color was a grayish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. [...] They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Glitsos, Laura; Hall, James (2019). "The Pepe the Frog meme: an examination of social, political, and cultural implications through the tradition of the Darwinian Absurd". Journal for Cultural Research. 23 (4): 381–395. doi:10.1080/14797585.2019.1713443.
  15. ↑ Brady, Clark A. (2024). The Burroughs Cyclopædia. McFarland. p. 229. ISBN 978-1-4766-0592-0. The fish-men of Amtor, who inhabit the city-state of Mypos. They have webbed hands and feet, gills on their necks, protruding lips, and bug eyes. They have heavy black beards and hair and their bodies are absolutely perfect, with well-developed muscles and practically no fat.
  16. 1 2 Kosemen, C. M. (2008). All Tomorrows. Swimmers [...] these post-human water babies came in every shape and size imaginable. There were limbless, ribbon like varieties of eel-people, huge, whale like behemoths, decorative people who swam by squirting water out of their hypertrophied mouths and horrifying multitudes of brainless wallowers
  17. ↑ Murphy, Chris (June 9, 2011). "GET TO THE FLASHPOINT, WEEK 2: Frankenstein, Aquaman, Deathstroke, Citizen Cold". ComicsAlliance. Archived from the original on November 14, 2013. Retrieved August 20, 2025. Also chucked into liquid-filled glass science tubes and forgotten are his fellow Project M commandoes, vampire Vincent Velcoro, wolfman Warren Griffith, and she-creature from the black lagoon Nina Mazursky. Stored in a basement and forgotten as one might misplace a cardboard box of old GI Joes, they break free when Frank finally regains consciousness in 2011.
  18. ↑ Smith, Paul Julian (2007). "Pan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno)". Film Quarterly. 60 (4): 4–9. doi:10.1525/fq.2007.60.4.4. the piscine Abe Sapien of Hellboy
  19. ↑ Poll, Ryan (2022). Aquaman and the War Against Oceans: Comics Activism and Allegory in the Anthropocene. University of Nebraska Press. p. 42. ISBN 9781496225856. This humanoid figure resembles monsters that circulate in popular culture. In conjunction with its blackness, its open mouth reveals elongated, sharp teeth, resembling a piranha's mouth.
  20. 1 2 Debus 2016, p. 230. "In a 1929 feature film, very loosely adapted from Jules Verne's 1875 novel The Mysterious Island [...] and undersea realm is discovered inhabitated by peculiar, tool-using undersea people [...] the fishy, axe-wielding creatures"..
  21. 1 2 Golden, Christopher; Bisette, Stephen R.; Sniegoski, Thomas E. (2000). The Monster Book. Simon & Schuster. p. 255. ISBN 0-671-04259-9. Other bizarre amphibious mermen (played by dwarfs in froglike suits) were discovered in the ocean's depths in MGM's lavish adaptdation of Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island (1929)
  22. 1 2 Johnson, John (1996). Cheap Tricks and Class Acts. McFarland & Company. p. 261. ISBN 9780786400935. the 1919 version of Mysterious Island in which he [Angelo Rossitto] played one of the many underwater frog-like creatures
  23. 1 2 Schoell, William (2008). "Humongous". Creature Features - Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1-4766-1072-6. The sea people resemble tiny mole men with big eyes, bald heads, and snow-white skin
  24. ↑ Debus 2016, pp. 230-231. "the Gill Man ("half man, half fish")".
  25. 1 2 Debus 2016, p. 237.
  26. ↑ Mitchell, Charles P. (2001). The complete H.P. Lovecraft filmography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 19. ISBN 9780313316418.
  27. ↑ "Das Grauen aus der Tiefe" [Humanoids from the Deep]. Moviepilot. Retrieved 2025-01-21. In experiments scientists have created creatures which are half human and half fish.
  28. 1 2 Farley, Rebecca (2017-12-01). "Why People Are So Obsessed With The Fish Man From The Shape Of Water". Refinery29. Retrieved 2025-02-03.
  29. 1 2 Adij, Alberta Natasia (2019). "Falling for the Amphibian Man: Fantasy, Otherness, and Auteurism in del Toro's The Shape of Water" (PDF). IAFOR Journal of Media, Communication & Film. 6 (1). Retrieved 2025-02-03. the half-man, half-lizard amphibian in The Shape of Water
  30. ↑ "The NIGHT WARRIORS have once again awakened... It is time to unleash your real power!". Maximum: The Video Game Magazine. No. 5. April 1996. p. 85. Retrieved 17 February 2025.
  31. ↑ Schick, Lawrence (1991). Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. Prometheus Books. p. 89. ISBN 0-87975-653-5.
  32. 1 2 DiSalvo, Paul (2020-10-07). "10 Dungeons & Dragons Monsters We Want As Playable Races". CBR.com. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
  33. 1 2 Bainbridge, William Sims (2012). The Warcraft Civilization: Social Science in a Virtual World. MIT Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-262-28837-8. Murlocs are rather aggressive amphibious humanoids
  34. 1 2 Newman, Heather (2015-11-16). "World of Warcraft's Patch 6.2.3 and anniversary have meme-tastic Thunderfury and new mounts (update)". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2025-02-18. frog-fish-what-the-hell-is-that-thing Murlocs
  35. ↑ Moumat, Raphaël (June 2001). "Rokea". Backstab (in French). No. 31. p. 85. Retrieved 2025-02-18.
  36. ↑ Miller, Sage Thomas (2020-10-23). "Dungeons & Dragons: 10 Facts You Need To Know About The Fish People, Sahuagin". CBR.com. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
  37. ↑ Furniss, Zack (November 16, 2016). "Volo's Guide to Monsters is the new, awesome Monster Manual for Dungeons & Dragons". Destructoid. Archived from the original on 2020-11-08. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
  38. ↑ Pursey, Jack (2020-11-05). "The Legend Of Zelda: 10 Most Interesting Things About The Zora". Game Rant. Archived from the original on 2022-05-02. Retrieved 2025-02-18. Zora [...] fish-like beings [...] An aquatic race [...] Sea Zora [...] have a more human-like appearance. [...] River Zora, on the other hand, are more fish-like in appearance.
  39. ↑ Burman, Rob (2015). "Stingray (1964/65)". Gerry Anderson Collectables. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 9781445648736. Aquaphibians, a nation of warrior-like mer-men
  40. ↑ Kurland, Daniel (2018-02-06). "18 Most Despicable Things Kim Possible Has Ever Done". Screen Rant. Retrieved 2025-02-19. Gill [...] mutated into a Creature From the Black Lagoon-like monster.
  41. ↑ London, Rob (2024-06-06). "This Iconic '50s Character Is Getting a New Series". Collider. Retrieved 2025-02-20.
  42. ↑ Sepinwall, Alan (2023-09-18). "Elon Musk Will Find 'Krapopolis' Funny. Everybody Else? Not So Much". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2025-02-20. Hippocampus (Duncan Trussell) is a fish-man monster
  43. ↑ Atoofi, Saeid (2015). "Context from a social semiotic perspective: a discourse analytical study of the children TV show, Bubble Guppies". Social Semiotics. 25 (5): 558–577. doi:10.1080/10350330.2015.1041790. a children animations series, Bubble Guppies, where human-like mermaids
  44. 1 2 Muir, John Kenneth (2015). A Critical History of Doctor Who on Television. McFarland & Company. p. 50. ISBN 9781476604541. Sil, a being of a race called the Mentors. He was a short, physically repulsive creature who seemed like an evolved fish or sea serpent.
  45. 1 2 Donaghy, Craig; Richards, Justin (2022). Doctor Who: A Short History of Everyone. Penguin Random House. p. 290. ISBN 978-1-405-95600-0. SIL [...] GIANT SLUG THING [...] Needs constant moisturing in a dry climate.
  46. 1 2 Thompson, Dave (2013). "The Thoros-Betans". Doctor Who FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Most Famous Time Lord in the Universe. Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. ISBN 978-1-4803-4295-8. Sil is [...] a slug, a tiny, wriggly wormlike man-thing [...] this repugnant little gastropod
  47. 1 2 "Everything you didn't know about TigerSharks". Syfy. 2019-03-07. Retrieved 2025-02-16. the TigerSharks' transformation into humanoid aquatics
  48. 1 2 LaMarche, Lee (2024-03-23). "Why TigerSharks Was Never as Successful as Thundercats or Silverhawks". MovieWeb. Retrieved 2025-02-26. a group of human-like aliens [...] morph into sea-going versions of themselves. Each one had its own new, cool form based on a specific sea creature. [...] Mako [...] became partly shark. Lorca [...] part-orca. Dolph [...] part dolphin. Octavia [...] whose head turned into an octopus. Walro [...] part walrus. [...] Angel and Bronc [...] into hybrid angelfish and seahorse
  49. ↑ Debus 2016, p. 235.
  50. ↑ Martha C., Sammons (1979). a guide through Narnia. Harold Shaw Publishers. p. 151. ISBN 0-87788-325-4. frog-like creatures
  51. ↑ Rowell, Dawlin (2019-10-30). "The 10 Scariest Monsters In Hellboy Comics, Ranked". CBR.com. Retrieved 2025-01-08. the Frog Monsters are considered the demonic ideal evolution of man, characterized as humanoid creatures with frog-like qualities
  52. ↑ Hsieh, Rebecca Wei (2018-12-18). "Star Wars: 20 Strange Details About Jar Jar Binks' Anatomy". Screen Rant. Retrieved 2025-01-24. In addition to features that recall the amphibians in our own galaxy, he [Jar Jar Binks]'s got lanky humanoid limbs [...] Gungans are an amphibious humanoid species
  53. ↑ Stomberg, Chris (2023-06-25). "Dungeons & Dragons: 8 Best Monsters For A Swamp". The Gamer. Retrieved 2024-11-28. Bullywugs are brutish frog-men
  54. ↑ Friend, Devin Ellis (2021-11-25). "Unique D&D Build Ideas For Aquatic Races". Screen Rant. Retrieved 2024-11-28. A stalwart humanoid bullfrog
  55. ↑ DelGreco, Marina (2020-11-28). "Mass Effect's Intelligent Salarian Alien Race Offer More Than Meets the Eye". Game Rant. Retrieved 2025-02-18. Salarians are notably amphibian
  56. ↑ Hayward, Philip (2018). "Mermaids, Mercultures and the Aquapelagic Imaginary". Shima. 12 (2): 12–24. doi:10.21463/shima.12.2.03.
  57. ↑ Meurger, Michel; Gagnon, Claude (1988). Lake Monster Traditions - A Cross-cultural Analysis. Fortean Tomes. p. 316. ISBN 9781870021005.
  58. ↑ Mackenzie, Donald A. (1935), "Fuath", Scottish folk-lore and folk life; studies in race, culture and tradition, London: Blackie, p. 233, hdl:2027/inu.39000003533341; Reprint: Read Books Ltd 2013 ISBN 9781447482703
  59. ↑ Debus 2016, p. 231-232.
  60. ↑ Wells, H. G. (2013). "IN THE ABYSS". The Plattner Story, and Others. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 2025-01-15. Its dark purple head was dimly suggestive of a chameleon[...]; the vertical pitch of its face gave it a most extraordinary resemblance to a human being. Two large and protruding eyes projected from sockets in chameleon fashion, and it had a broad reptilian mouth with horny lips beneath its little nostrils. In the position of the ears were two huge gill-covers, and out of these floated a branching tree of coralline filaments, almost like the tree-like gills that very young rays and sharks possess. [...] It was a biped; its almost globular body was poised on a tripod of two frog-like legs and a long thick tail, and its fore limbs, which grotesquely caricatured the human hand, much as a frog's do
  61. ↑ Westfahl, Gary (27 September 2022). The Stuff of Science Fiction: Hardware, Settings, Characters. McFarland. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-4766-4695-4.
  62. ↑ Hearn, Kayleigh (July 18, 2025). "Marvel's 15 Strongest Omega-Level Mutants, Ranked". Looper. Retrieved August 20, 2025. The aquatic, axolotl-headed mutant Sobunar of the Depths is a living biome.
  63. ↑ "Movie Review: SPLIT SECOND (1992)". Outburn Online. 2020-09-26. Retrieved 2025-01-23. the conception of the killer is a somewhat unoriginal mixture of Aliens and Predator
  64. ↑ Valentino, Alexander (2024-09-15). "10 Alien Rip Off Movies That Are Actually Pretty Good". Screen Rant. Retrieved 2025-01-23. the antagonist is revealed to be not a human serial murderer, but a Xenomorph like monster, albeit a far more humanoid one than Ridley Scott's
  65. ↑ Petty, Gabriella (2018-10-22). "The Elder Scrolls Online: Murkmire gives the Argonians the homeland they deserve". PCGamesN. Retrieved 2025-02-04. Ah, the Argonians of Elder Scrolls. Tamriel's friendly neighbourhood swamp lizards have been an essential part of Elder Scrolls [...]. Surely there's more value in the reptilians than immunity to disease and the ability to breathe underwater?
  66. ↑ Lee, Stephanie; Madrigal, Hector; Graeber, Brendan (2016-10-11). "Argonian". IGN. Retrieved 2025-02-04. Argonians are a reptilian race from Black Marsh. They can breathe under water indefinitely
  67. ↑ Lam, Claris (2021-09-27). "6 Anime That Take Place Almost Entirely Underwater". CBR. Retrieved 2025-02-20. Nagi-Asu: A Lull In The Sea Followed Humans Who Lived Underwater [...] Long ago, humans lived underwater and developed a scale-like layer on their skins called Ena to do so.
  68. ↑ Graham-Lowery, Nathan (2024-11-16). "Doctor Who Spinoff Set Photo Reveals First Look At Sea Devils Redesign". Screen Rant. Retrieved 2025-02-25.

General references