History Main / BizarreAlienLocomotion

* [[Franchise/{{Peanuts}} Snoopy]] has occasionally twirled his ears [[HeliCritter like a helicopter's propellers]] to fly around.

[[AC:Films - Animated]]
* Dumbo the elephant from Disney's ''Dumbo'' is able to fly using his oversized ears.

[[AC:Films - Live-Action]]
* ''Film/Tremors3BackToPerfection'', the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Assblasters]] take off and fly by jet propulsion.
* The fan lizard from ''Film/{{Avatar}}''.
* Some small pillar-shaped organisms in the swamps of ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'' fly straight upward with propellers.
* Film/{{Gamera}} propels himself through the air by spinning like a Frisbee.
* Franchise/{{Godzilla}} is seen propelling himself using his nuclear breath to chase Hedorah, though the physics behind it is murky at best, and he never did so again.

* ''Expedition'' by Wayne Barlowe.
** Jetdarters and Skewers use jet propulsion. The former are bug-sized, the latter are... jets.

* One race of ''Literature/{{Cluster}}'' series uses jet propulsion.
* Errol the swamp dragon manages to turn his flame inside-out and jet propel himself in ''Literature/GuardsGuards''. The lunar dragons from ''Literature/TheLastHero'' use it as their normal mode of propulsion.
* In ''Literature/AfterManAZoologyOfTheFuture'', the juvenile parashrew grows a parachute made of hair on the tip of its tail, and uses this to catch the mountain winds, dispersing over distances such a tiny animal couldn't otherwise traverse. The parachute-hairs fall out once it finds a territory of its own.

* ''Picture Atlas of Our Universe'' has one species from Jupiter called the Jellyblimps.

* The skies of ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'''s Jupiter are already home to floating gas bags, but a better example is probably the Eagle Snake. Eagle Snakes are metre long, lamprey mouthed creatures that use three gas bags on their ventral side to control their elevation and propel themselves, while using the ridge of thin flesh to squirm through the air.

* Keelerak spiders from ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' could fly by [[InstantFlightJustAddSpinning spinning in the air like a Frisbee]], using their pointy feet to become giant buzz-saws. There are also shore turtles, which are simple turtles, that can, for whatever reason, fly. Though it's never explained how -- they don't have wings or thrusters.

* One of the Ages from ''VideoGame/UruAgesBeyondMyst'' has disc-shaped creatures that spring up into the air and drift down like parachutes, similar to the Forte creatures listed above.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Pikmin}} Pikmin 2]]'':

** The Snitchbugs from the same games used to have normal wings, but lost them during their evolution. Instead their antenna now serve as their wings.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' gives us Valstrax. While it's a faily standard quadruped on the ground, its method of flight is bizarre: it draws in air through an orifice on its chest, compresses it with [[AppliedPhlebotonium Dragon energy]], then ejects the mixture from its wings as it ignites to propel itself. That's right - it's a living jet engine. The wings themselves also have bizarre flexibility for biological limbs, being able to stretch a surprising distance to stab at prey, or completely flip with the vents pointing forwards so Valstrax can use blasts of Dragon energy [[WeaponizedExhaust as an attack]].

* ''WesternAnimation/BattleForTerra'' - The aliens can fly and use their tails in a fashion similar to how fish use their tails to swim underwater.

* The Fairyfly is the smallest known flying insect, measuring less than half the size of a grain of salt. At this size, air itself has a semi-viscous, syrup-like quality, meaning fairyflies don't so much fly as they do swim/pull their way forward with their [[https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4083/4975948519_82e56e049c_b.jpg oddly shaped wings.]]

* The rubberado, a tongue-in-cheek cryptid from the tall tales of 19th century American lumberjacks, is a porcupine with rubbery spines and flesh. It bounces around the landscape like a rubber ball, and anyone who eats rubberado meat will bounce around the same way for a few days.

* ''Film/SaveYourselves'': The pouffes' primary method of movement is via the usage of a long, grappling hook-like tendril that they can shoot from their bodies, which allows them to drag themselves to any surface and stick to it. The tendril is also shown to be strong enough to pierce a hole through the metal shell of Su and Jack's car, as well as through people's heads in order to kill them. Aside from this, the pouffes are also able to simply slide along surfaces and jump through the air. At one point, a pouffe is even able to levitate and float around.

* Before it became its own theme, ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' offered some weird machine-animal mixes under the ''LEGO Technic'' logo: the Tarakava and Tarakava Nui lizards, Muaka tiger, Kane-Ra bull, Kuma Nui rat, Manas and Mana-Ko crabs are all creatures that had ''tank threads'' for back legs. What's more peculiar is that in the story, everyone regarded these as having honest-to-goodness legs.

* The Gorons of ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' fame primarily move by rolling. While they can walk, their stubby legs and extremely top heavy stature make them so slow they can be outrun by a small human child. However, in ball form they can roll fast enough to keep up with a giant mechanical goat and match a half-grown young horse.
* The Waterwraith from ''[[VideoGame/{{Pikmin}} Pikmin 2]]'' usually moves around on stone rollers which it uses to crush your Pikmin, making it an extremely dangerous enemy. It is capable of walking normally on its back legs like a person if its rollers are destroyed.
* In ''VideoGame/{{StarCraft II}}'', banelings execute this trope with an upgrade (which increases their speed).
* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' includes these as flavor text - the "Alien Specimen Procurement' quest chain involves capturing specimens of Uddlorans, described as small furry animals that can wrap themselves into tight balls and roll at up to 80 kilometre per hour across the snow fields of their home planet.
* Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog and many of his friends have the ability to curl up into a ball and roll along the ground at high speed. Sometimes they can even "rev up" in place to dash forward with a tremendous burst of speed.

* Franchise/{{Godzilla}} is seen propelling using his nuclear breath to chase Hedorah, though the physics behind it is murky at best, and he never did so again.

[[quoteright:350:[[Anime/JoJosBizarreAdventure https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/imagesjpeg_2_2.jpg]]]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/imagesjpeg_2_2.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:It's all fun and games until a little critter gets a bit ''nosey.'']]

[[AC:Films - Animated]]

* The snails from ''WesternAnimation/{{Turbo}}'' will "tuck and roll", hiding inside their shells to roll down slopes, if they need to move faster than a crawl and/or shield their soft parts while in motion. [[spoiler: This maneuver is how Turbo wins the Indy 5000 after he's injured and loses his SuperSpeed just shy of the finish line.]]

[[AC:Films - Live-Action]]

* ''Picture Atlas of Our Universe has one species from Jupiter called the Jellyblimps.

* Franchise/{{Godzilla}} in some movies is seen propelling using his nuclear breath, though the physics behind it is murky at best.

** Sideshow performers [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Eck Johnny Eck]] (born with a truncated torso and no legs) and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Randian Prince Randian]] (born with no limbs at all) moved like this by necessity: Eck by walking on his hands, and Randian by wiggling along like a caterpillar. They were both immortalised in the movie ''Film/{{Freaks}}''.

[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]

[[quoteright:300:[[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grateful_dead_key_art_2.png]]]]

** Sideshow performers [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Eck Johnny Eck]] (born with a truncated torso and no legs) and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Randian Prince Randian]] (born with no limbs at all) moved like this by necessity: Eck by walking on his hands like the character in the page image, and Randian by wiggling along like a caterpillar. They were both immortalised in the movie ''Film/{{Freaks}}''.

* Some of the fish from Creator/DrSeuss' book ''[=McElligot's=] Pool''. There are fish with built-in sails or propellers. One fish can ski down underwater slopes. There are even fish who jump off steep waterfalls and parachute down to the river below.

* While [[Disney/LiloAndStitch Stitch]] has legs, and normally walks, runs, or climbs, he can also curl himself into a ball and roll around with surprising speed.

* Yaarp (AKA Experiment 613) from ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries'' can hop around using his tail, a la [[Literature/WinnieThePooh Tigger]].

** The Dugs from ''Star Wars'' walk on their hands, while using their feet as... well... hands.

* Errol the swamp dragon manages to turn his flame inside-out and jet propel himself in ''Discworld/GuardsGuards''. The lunar dragons from ''Discworld/TheLastHero'' use it as their normal mode of propulsion.

* The cover art for ''Discworld/TheScienceOfDiscworld III'' shows men riding on a giant tortoise with wheels in place of its feet. This was probably created by the God of Evolution, who'd been working on a wheeled elephant when he'd previously appeared in ''Discworld/TheLastContinent''.

* Keelerak spiders from ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' could fly by [[EverythingIsBetterWithSpinning spinning in the air like a Frisbee]], using their pointy feet to become giant buzz-saws. There are also shore turtles, which are simple turtles, that can, for whatever reason, fly. Though it's never explained how -- they don't have wings or thrusters.

[[AC:Films - Animated]]
* Dash in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' is capable of running on water with his SuperSpeed.

* There's also the real-world basilisk, also referred to as the "Jesus Lizard." It's just a regular lizard on land, but it can run on water for short distances if it builds up enough speed and rises up on its hind legs.
* Water striders are insects that can also walk on water, distributing their slight weight far enough for surface tension to support them.

* The Tran are a race of [[SingleBiomePlanet ice world]] natives with claws on their feet that act as natural ice skates, and sails beneath their arms that let them catch the wind for propulsion. The stavanzer, a gargantuan herbivore from the same icy planet, slides on its belly like a slug, propelled by blasting air out its twin posterior vents and dragging itself forward with two colossal ice-gripping tusks.

* ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'':
** Globin is a planet-sized living thing; it has an intelligent, sentient civilization comprised of leukocytes traveling around Globin's bloodstream.
** The people of Wiral are made of electricity. They normally just float about but prefer to do high-speed travel through electric wires.

* Whereas most burrowing mammals claw or push their way through the soil, mole rats create their tunnels by scraping away at hard-packed dirt with their enormous buck teeth.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In "Basics" a cave-lizard has four limbs spaced around its circumference, so it can pull itself along the cave roof as well as the ground.

* The fish-creature from ''Film/TheHost'' traverses the undersides of bridges above the Han River by ''doing back flips'', alternately gripping with its two legs and its prehensile tail.
* Fleeches in ''[[VideoGame/{{Oddworld}} Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus]]'' are worm-like creatures who move like regular real life worms, but they can use their MultipurposeTongue as a grappling hook to navigate their environment.

* Squid and octopuses can use jet propulsion, squirting water out their siphons to quickly move forward. Some have even been seen jetting out of the water.
* There's also the real-world basilisk, also referred to as the "Jesus Lizard." It's just a regular lizard on land, but it can run on water for short distances if it builds up enough speed and rises up on its hind legs. Dash in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' uses a similar method of running on water with his SuperSpeed.
* Water striders are insects that can also walk on water, distributing their slight weight far enough for surface tension to support them.
** In ''Literature/AfterManAZoologyOfTheFuture'', a tiny mammal called the pfrit does the same, using long hairs on its feet to distribute its few grams of weight over the water's surface.

* One hypothetical alien creature from ''Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman'' had a tubular body and vane-shaped fins that propelled it through water by rotating like a drill.
* The stream gobies of Hawaii are small fishes that, while they swim normally, also ascend waterfalls to reach their breeding pools. They cling to the rocks behind the falling water with their mouths and a set of modified pelvic fins that form a suction-cup disc.
* A minority theory for why some pterosaurs sported such broad head-crests is that they could use them as sails while sitting on the surface of the water, drifting along without expending any muscular effort.

* The remora uses a suction cup on the top of its head to hitch rides on sharks and other large sea creatures rather than swimming on its own.
* The ocean sunfish, or mola mola, loses its true tail early in development, and grows a unique pseudo-tail - the clavus - from its dorsal and anal fins for an alternate rudder.
* Sunspot, Jet's alien pet from ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'', moves himself underwater by whirling his striped tail like a propeller.
* Scavenging tideline snails can "ride" the surf by spreading their foot like an underwater sail.