History Main / Imprinting

* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'': Samus, in the events of ''Videogame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus''/''VideoGame/MetroidSamusReturns'', has been sent to exterminate all of the Metroids. Upon arrival at the location of the last Metroid, she finds only an egg, which promptly hatches, revealing a baby Metroid, who imprints itself on her as its mother. In the next game in the series, ''Videogame/SuperMetroid'', the last Metroid attacks Samus near the end of the game, but quickly darts off before killing her once it realises who who she is. [[spoiler:It returns during the final boss battle with Mother Brain to save Samus at the cost of its own life.]]

* In ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxterThePrecursorLegacy'', an optional sidequest[[note]] Though if you don't do it, you don't get the Power Cell for it, and there are a few Precursor Orbs and Power Cells you can't get without it, but that's it[[/note]] has you knock an egg off a cliff. When you get back to it, the flut flut inside hatches, and imprints on Daxter, over the latter's protests.

* Naturally, many birds imprint on the first thing they see as their mother, which was experimented on by Konrad Lorenz, as seen in his iconic picture showing him walking through some grass with three ducklings following him closely.
** This can cause some problems later in a bird's life. The (now grown-up) bird may try to socialize, and even mate, with members of the species upon which it imprinted, instead of its own species. Birds raised by humans may never be able to released into the wild for this reason. For example, special hats are worn by falconers to "accept the affection" of male birds that have been raised in captivity, which can then be used to fertilize similarly raised females (via syringe). When caring for baby birds with the intention of release, Wildlife Rescue and/or Rehabilitation Centers sometimes use masks or puppets to teach hatchlings what species to imprint on.

* ''Literature/{{Dragonriders Of Pern}}'':

* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', the first book has Hagrid adopt a pet dragon and he assumes it thinks he's its mother, even calling himself "Mummy".
* At the end of Dr. Seuss' ''Horton Hatches An Egg'', the newly-hatched... creature not only recognizes Horton (who faithfully incubated its egg while the bird that laid it was off living it up) as its father, it also emerges with [[LamarckWasRight elephant-like features]]. In typical Seussian fashion, it's meant to impart AnAesop about family being about more than whose DNA you happen to share.

* The ''Literature/{{Inheritance Cycle}}'' slightly averts this. Rather than the dragon bonding to the first person it sees, it bonds to the first person who touches it. However, the dragon hatches in the presence of this person on purpose, so it's kinda recursive.

* Creator/{{Robert Anton Wilson}} puts forth the theory of sexual imprinting in his Shrodinger's Cat Trilogy- that whatever someone's earliest sexual experiences are like leads them to seek that out most in future- e.g. with another race, same-sex attraction, kink, etc.
%%* Literature/{{Septimus Heap}}'s dragon Spit Fyre.

* Probably one of the most popular cases, ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' gives us Jacob Black, who imprints himself on Bella's and Edward's daughter (though, as for why, it's pretty vague). The werewolf characters in general do this to various people after ''New Moon.''

* WesternAnimation/LuckyAndZorba revolves around it, with the seagull chick Lucky mistaking the cat Zorba for her mother after she hatches in front of him.

* ''Series/FraggleRock'': In one episode, Junior accidentally drops the egg of two tree creatures (birds) into the Fraggles' pond, and Wembley takes it on himself to sit on the egg. On hatching, the baby tree creature, seeing Wembley, starts calling him "Mama".

* ''Series/SesameStreet'':
** In one episode, a baby honker hatches out of its egg and believes Luis to be its father. When its real parents arrive, Luis points out that the baby looks similar to its parents, but Luis looks a lot different, which makes the baby realise that Luis isn't his father.
** One sketch has Grover watch a nest of eggs hatch into baby birds, who start calling him "Mommy" ("Can I watch TV?"). Then their real mother arrives and thinks Grover is one of her chicks.

* The ''WesternAnimation/SuperMarioWorld'' cartoon episode "Mama Luigi" played with this, in which Luigi fulfilled the parent figure for a baby Yoshi.

* It has happened in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' a few times:
** In [[Anime/{{Pokemon 3}} the third movie]], a little girl named Molly imprints on the illusion of Entei as her "Papa" for the rest of the movie.
** During the Kanto saga, Ash and his friends were fighting with Team Rocket over who got to keep the Togepi egg Ash had found--Togepi ultimately chose Misty, because she was the first thing Togepi saw right after hatching, therefore assuming that Misty was her mother.
** In ''Anime/PokemonRangerAndTheTempleOfTheSea'', May is holding the Manaphy-egg when it hatches--just like with Misty and Togepi, May was the first thing Manaphy saw after hatching, so he naturally assumed that May was his mother. Brock helpfully explains what happened for the benefit of the audience.
** And in the XY saga, Ash's Noibat imprinted on him after hatching.

* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'''s [[Fanfic/CrucibleMassEffect Crucible]]'', all turian and hybrid children imprint on their parents by their sight, smell and sound. Naturally, the first thing a child imprints on is its mother, but it doesn't matter who the father is. The imprint can be so strong that even if the child is separated from its parents from a very young age and remember nothing of them, it can still remember the smell. The process also causes a baby to react very violently if the one holding it isn't its parent or at least a family's member.
** In the one timeline, Future!Gaius imprinted on his mother Shepard and Sidonis's family while Garrus, his real father was virtually a stranger. This prompts present!Garrus to try his very best to ensure that Gaius will imprint on him in this timeline. He succeeds, and baby!Gaius reacts to him even faster than to his mother.

* The ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Hatchery" reverses this, with Archer being sprayed with a chemical in a Xindi-Insectoid hatchery that makes him imprint on the babies as a caretaker.
* On a bigger scale, The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Galaxy's Child" showed a spaceborne lifeform which was delivered from its dead mother by the crew of the ''Enterprise'' (a Caesarian by phaser beam). The creature then imprints on the ''Enterprise'' (because the ship was about the same size as the mother and produced energy in a similar way as the mother would have done), attaching itself to the hull and feeding off of energy from the fusion generators.

* In the 2009 series ''Series/{{V|2009}}'', Anna is able to do this with [[spoiler:Ryan's half-V, half-human child,]] by giving the infant a disease that causes her pain unless she receives Anna's [[GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul bliss]]. [[spoiler:She had at that point already killed the baby's real mother.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tom and Jerry}}'' cartoons, it is very common for a duckling or other bird to imprint on Tom or Jerry, who will then invariably try to get rid of it. One example is "The Egg and Jerry", where a woodpecker egg rolls into Jerry's home and hatches there. Jerry does eventually convince the chick that he is not its mother.

** In ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheBirthOfJapan'' (all versions), Nobita creates three fantastic pets using DOraemon's Life Creation Set, injecting DNA into artificial eggs which then hatches into a {{pegasus}}, a [[OurGryphonsAreDifferent gryphon]] and an [[OurDragonsAreDifferent oriental dragon]]. As Nobita is present when all three eggs hatches, the three baby animals quickly registers Nobita as their parent.

** There's a manga story, "Typhoon Fuuko", where Nobita asks for a futuristic pet from Doraemon. Doraemon complies by giving Nobita a 23rd-Century egg which somehow hatches into a baby tornado with a single eye (!!!), who becomes attached to Nobita. This short was later recycled into a full-length film, ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheWindmasters''.

* ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheWingedBraves'' have a newly-hatched Birdpian infant imprinting on Suneo and becoming attached to him, spending much of his screentime after hatching by sitting on Suneo's scalp, HeadPet-style. Suneo eventually becomes attached to the chick, and even lets out OcularGushers when the gang have to say goodbye to Birdopia and it's citizens at the end.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'': In ''The Great Valley Adventure'', Chomper imprints on Littlefoot, and then on the rest of the gang. Given that throughout the series, "Sharptooth" dinosaurs are anything ''but'' friendly, this is quite amusing.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

* ''WesternAnimation/TheDeep'''': In "Fossil", a baby dinosaur hatches out of its egg and immediately imprints on Ant as the only moving thing in sight (and because his wetsuit reeks of fish food). ItMakesSenseIncontext.

** A sequel to this cartoon repeats the same setup, only for the bird to imprint on ''Slappy Squirrel'' instead.

* Although we don’t ever get to see it happen, the lore on the culture of the Salarians in ''Franchise/MassEffect'' states that the Dalatrass (clan matriarch) is always present whenever any eggs laid by any female in her clan hatches. This ensures that the younglings will imprint on her as well as their mother and will become loyal to her as their clan leader. When a fertilized egg that produces a female youngling hatches, the Dalatrasses of both the egg laying mother's clan and the egg fertilizing father's clan are present. This ensures that the female will have dual loyalty to both parents’ clans and thereby strengthens the alliance between them. This is done because salarian females are all exclusively groomed to become politicians.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation''. [[http://scp-wiki.net/scp-111 SCP-111 ("Dragon Snails")]] hatchlings can imprint on humans who are nearby when they're hatched. This was done so they would obey their owners.

** One stand-alone cartoon involved a baby bird hatching from an egg, confusing a fighter plane for his mother, and proceeds to follow it.

* Probably one of the most popular cases, ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' gives us Jacob Black, who imprints himself on Bella's and Edward's daughter (though, as for why, it's pretty vague).
** The werewolf characters in general do this to various people after ''New Moon.''
* Probably one of the earliest Imprinting-themed fairytales are ''Literature/TheUglyDuckling'', where the baby swan(cygnet) sees the mother duck, and follows her believing the duck to be his mother.

* In the ''Literature/{{Dragonriders Of Pern}}'' series, newly-hatched dragons, fire lizards, or watchwhers are subject to imprinting ("Impression") upon the first human with which they establish a psychic link. In this case it is not the first person they see, since they'll plow through any number of people to get to the person they are supposed to Impress with, though Impression always occurs after the two make eye contact.

* ''Film/TheHandThatRocksTheCradle'' had the [[BabysitterFromHell evil nanny]] attempting this with the youngest child (an infant) in her charge, primarily by way of breast-feeding (unbeknownst to, and unauthorized by, the mother) which leads to the baby rejecting his own mother's milk, and the bonding that comes with that. The whole premise of the movie was the nanny trying to steal the children of a woman she blames for her miscarriage and subsequent hysterectomy.

* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' The Phoenix Mountain tribe can imprison people in eggs--when the egg is "hatched", the victim imprints on the first person they see and will obey their instructions. [[spoiler:But the one plot-important person this happens to is Shampoo, and the first person she sees is... herself in a mirror.]]

* ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell'': The antropromorphic animals inherit traits from non-anthropromorphic equivalents, including imprinting used by birds. When the goose got separated from the egg, this was worked around by printing an image of the parent and using that as a mask.