History Main / TerrestrialSeaLife

** The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crab coconut crab]] is actually so well adapted to life on land that it can't swim or breath underwater at all (though it can apparently hold its breath for about an hour). Its also notable for being both [[BigCreepyCrawlies the largest terrestrial]] [[GiantEnemyCrab invertebrate on earth]]--often growing to over 3 feet across (about the size of an adult human torso!), which some scientists believe may be the largest any terrestrial arthropod can grow in the current makeup of the earth's atmosphere--and the only species of hermit crab with a hard enough carapace to protect itself without having to scavenge another creature's discarded shell to live out of.

* Though not exactly terrestrial, there are species of fish which can survive for up to several days on land, capable of breathing air and slithering long distances out of the water. In many parts of North America, for instance, the walking catfish and snakehead have both become notorious as invasive pests, traveling between bodies of water and preying on the resident fish- in some cases covering miles of travel by resting in puddles and ditches between major bodies of water.

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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/KennyTheShark https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kenny_8.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:It's not usually wise to be [[{{Pun}} chummy]] with a shark.]]

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SubTrope of ArtisticLicenseMarineBiology. Compare FlyingSeafoodSpecial, SandIsWater. Many examples of GiantEnemyCrab and/or FishPeople fall under this trope as well, though neither is exclusively terrestrial. May involve TailfinWalking. Supertrope to LandShark. See also MisplacedWildlife, of which this is a fairly extreme form.

* ''Little Shark's Day Out'' has a small shark doing everyday activities on land.

* ''Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'': The villain Starro the Star Conqueror is a literal StarfishAlien with parasitic MindControl abilities. Its natural habitat is [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong your face]].
* Jeff the cute puppy-like land shark in the Marvel universe.

* ''WesternAnimation/ChickenLittle'': Fish out of Water is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, a fish who walks on land while wearing a helmet full of water.

* The titular giant, killer "molluscs" from '50s B-Movie ''Film/TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld''. They appear more like big, blubbery, bug-eyed centipedes than anything else, though it's possible that the writers may have gotten molluscs confused with crustaceans.

* The ''Film/{{Sharktopus}}'' is part shark and part octopus, yet is capable of living indefinitely on land and walks and climbs about using its tentacles. Its later enemies, the Whalewolf and the Pteracuda, also apply, though they have the excuse of being half land animal.

* Deep Ones from Creator/HPLovecraft's stories are a race of amphibian FishPeople who can dwell on land with no problem.

* Chevy Chase's "[[ThreateningShark Land Shark]]" sketches on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive''.
-->"Candygram!"
* The SpeculativeDocumentary ''Series/TheFutureIsWild'' features several species of terrestrial cephalopods that appeared 200 million years after humankind's extinction, including the enormous, elephant-like Megasquid and the tree-dwelling, monkey-like Squibbon. 100 million years earlier there was also the amphibious swampus—it could move around on land, with four of its original eight arms adapted into flat snail-like feet, but still needed to lay eggs in brackish water.

** ''White Plume Mountain'' (1979). The GiantEnemyCrab the {{PC}}s encounter is living out of water without any problems.
** ''Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia'' (1980). In the world of Nehwon, the Behemoth is a 40-foot-long killer whale with four stubby legs that can move around on land. There are three varieties: the swamp behemoth, an arctic version with white fur and a jet-black type with long legs that lives in the plains and hills.
** ''Monster Manual II'' (1983). The Land Urchin is a large (three feet wide) land-dwelling relative of the sea urchin with five legs. [[SpikeShooter It can fire its spines at opponents and prey]].

* The citizens of ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'''s Lungfishopolis are all Hideous Hulking Lungfish (basically angler fish with arms and legs), hence the name, but live in a terrestrial city based on [[TokyoFireball Tokyo as portrayed]] in '60s {{Kaiju}} films ([[InvertedTrope casting the human protagonist and villain as the Kaiju]]). However, this trope is largely {{Subverted}} by Linda, the Hideous Hulking Lungfish whose MentalWorld Lungfishopolis is, who never ventures onto shore for more than the few seconds it takes to pick up or drop off the protagonist on the shore.
* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'' has the Inklings, which are humanoid squids that live on land. In fact, they actually dissolve when immersed in water. Their sister species, the Octarians, are octopuses (some humanoid, some literally severed tentacles) that have the same weakness. There are terrestrial forms of other sea life such as sea urchins and the jellyfish common all over Inkopolis and Splatsville as well, though they seem to have far less trouble with the whole water thing. In this case, modern sea life evolved to live on land after the previous land dwellers were wiped out by rising sea levels and global conflict.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' franchise has several species of amphibious humanoids resembling aquatic creatures. The Murlocs are savage, barbaric FishMen, the Jinyu are their more civilized relatives who live in Pandaria and practice [[MakingASplash water magic]], and the Naga are eel-like SnakePeople descended from mutated elves.
* The hanar from ''Franchise/MassEffect'' are normally jellyfish-like beings who live in water, but thanks to special mass effect equipment they can live on land and interact with many other terrestrial beings of the galaxy.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterSanctuary'' has Akhlut, an orca that grew legs so it could hunt on land.

* ''VideoGame/CthulhuSavesTheWorld'' features sea life on land as enemies. Dolphins, crabs, seahorses and octopi (and the UndergroundMonkey versions of the latter three) all appear on land with no problem to attack Cthulhu and his party. One of the bosses in the game is a land-dwelling fire-powered whale known as Fire Whale. [[FishPeople Deep Ones]] and their variations also have no problem with attacking Cthulhu on land.
* The ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' series features octopi as house-dwelling neighbors.
* ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'':
** Suketoudara is a talking, land-dwelling fish with arms and legs. His main character trait is his love of dancing, though he does [[PungeonMaster make lots of ocean-based puns too]].
** Suketoudara's ''Fever'' era equivalent, the Ocean Prince (Prince Salde in the Japanese originals), is exactly what he sounds like -- an anthropomorphic fish who happens to be the prince of the sea. Him breathing on land can be justified because [[spoiler:he actually is biologically a human, but willingly let himself be transformed into a fish to avoid his royal duties]].

* The titular endangered cephalopod of the notorious "[[http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ Save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus]]" internet hoax was said to live in the treetops of the Olympic National Forest, only returning to the water in order to spawn.
* [[https://frodos-bizarre-adventure.tumblr.com/post/615943477775171584/so-in-the-light-of-the-ridiculous-titan-dolphin#notes This Tumblr discussion]], analyzing on how a terrestrial cetacean [[SpeculativeBiology would probably evolve.]]
* Many of the creatures found in the WebOriginal/MysteryFleshPitNationalPark are related to marine invertebrates like echinoderms, jellyfish, and copepods. The Permian Basin superorganism has sections carbon-dated to the actual Permian era, when that section of Texas would have been undersea, so [[JustifiedTrope most likely some sea creatures infested it then and evolved through the eons to their current forms]].

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' is an interesting example.
** The show takes place underwater and most of its cast is made up of aquatic creatures, yet they all act as if they were on dry land, walking on the sea floor rather than swimming. They occasionally visit the surface world, but how well they survive there [[DependingOnTheWriter varies from one instance to the next]].
** The character of Sandy Cheeks is an inversion. She's a "land squirrel" who lives in an underwater dome, and is able to get around in a diving suit.

* The main cast of ''WesternAnimation/StreetSharks'' are a gang of teenage boys turned into [[SharkMan anthropomorphic sharks]], who primarily live on land, and can swim through concrete by [[ExtremeOmnivore biting through it]].
* Dave the octopus and his squid minions in ''WesternAnimation/PenguinsOfMadagascar'' spend all their time on land. In fact, Dave is able to disguise himself as a human.
* Sid the Squid, one of Walter Wolf's lackeys in ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' is shown on land so much that he never appears in the ocean in any of he episodes he shows up in.

* ''WesternAnimation/ZigAndSharko'': The marine creatures have no problem going around on land (in several episodes, Sharko's job is a ''beach lifeguard''), while Zig (a hyena) needs scuba diving equipment to go around underwater.

SubTrope of ArtisticLicenseMarineBiology. Compare FlyingSeafoodSpecial, SandIsWater. Many examples of GiantEnemyCrab and/or FishPeople fall under this trope as well, though neither is exclusively terrestrial. May involve TailfinWalking. See also MisplacedWildlife, of which this is a fairly extreme form.

* ''Save Me Mr Tako: Tasukete Tako-San'' features an octopus named Mr Tako who, after rescuing a woman from drowning, is granted the ability to survive on land, as he attempts to resolve the conflicts between his own kind and the land-dwelling humans.

* The tribbets from ''WebOriginal/{{Serina}}'' are terrestrial descendants of guppies introduced to the titular terraformed moon. While the earliest forms resembled mudskippers, they later evolve into [[BizarreAlienLimbs three-legged]] analogues of frogs and lizards, and one lineage, the furry, warm-blooded tribbetheres, develop erect limbs and mobile ear pinnae from their gill covers, essentially becoming a FantasticFaunaCounterpart of mammals.

[[caption-width-right:350:It's not usually wise to be chummy with a shark.]]

* The titular giant, killer "molluscs" from '50s B-Movie ''Film/TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld''. They appear more like big, blubbery, bug-eyed centipedes than anything else, though it's possible that the writers [[CriticalResearchFailure may have gotten molluscs confused with crustaceans]].

* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'' has the Inklings, which are humanoid squids that live on land. In fact, they actually dissolve when immersed in water. Their sister species, the Octarians, are humanoid octopuses that have the same weakness. There are terrestrial forms of other sea life such as sea urchins and the jellyfish common all over Inkopolis as well, though they seem to have far less trouble with the whole water thing.

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' has the Inklings, which are humanoid squids that live on land. In fact, they actually dissolve when immersed in water. Their rivals the Octarians, who are humanoid octopuses, have the same weakness. There are terrestrial forms of other sea life such as sea urchins and the jellyfish common all over Inkopolis as well.

* Snails and slugs technically count, being the only members of the otherwise exclusively aquatic mollusc phylum to evolve for life on land, though most people consider sea-snails to be the aquatic equivalent of their terrestrial brethren rather than the other way around.

* In prehistoric times, there were several varieties of long-legged land-dwelling [[NeverSmileAtACrocodile crocodilians]], including the large and imposingly named ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnufex Carnufex carolinensis]]'' or "Carolina Butcher", most of which had died off by the end of the Late Cretaceous leaving only the aquatic ones we know today.

* There were multiple terrestrial crocodilians even up to Cenozoic times. Pristichampsus, for example, was top predator in the northern hemisphere, while sebecids, which had survived the Cretaceous Mass Extinction, emerged as the largest land predators since the non-avian dinosaurs. And there are even some ''modern'' terrestrial crocodiles: the last of them were wiped out by humans a mere four thousand years ago, and before this we wiped out another terrestrial crocodilian in Australia.

* The ''Abdopus'' octopus can hunt on land when the tide goes out.

** ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'' features a type of rare enemy -- only three appear -- called pearly clamclamps, creatures almost identical to scallops in most respects... except that two of them found sitting on the forest floor, well away from water.
--->'''Olimar:''' "One would expect this creature to be a mollusk of the sea, but the fact that it is also found in the forest is typical of this planet's oddities."

* Though not exactly terrestrial, the walking catfish of Southeast Asia can survive for up to several days on land, capable of breathing air and slithering long distances out of the water. In many places of North America, the walking catfish has become an invasive pest, traveling between bodies of water and preying on the resident fish.

* The ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' series features both octipi and dolphins as house-dwelling neighbors.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudskipper Mudskippers]] are amphibious fish that spend significant amount of time on land.

* [[https://www.oceanicsociety.org/resources/ocean-facts/the-shark-that-can-walk-on-land/ Epaulette sharks]] can also survive on land and without oxygen for up to several hours. They can even walk using their fins to get from tide pool to tide pool in search of food, and tend to live in areas with low or variable water levels, like the intertidal zone.

* The SpeculativeDocumentary ''Series/TheFutureIsWild'' features several species of terrestrial cephalopods that appeared 200 million years after humankind's extinction, including the enormous, elephant-like Megasquid and the tree-dwelling, monkey-like Squibbon.

[[folder:Videogames]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' has the Inklings, which are humanoid squid that live on land. In fact, they actually dissolve when immersed in water. Their rivals the Octarians, who are humanoid octopuses, have the same weakness. There also happens to be terrestrial forms of other sea life such as sea urchins and the jellyfish common all over Inkopolis as well.

** The first game features a type of rare enemy -- only three appear -- called pearly clamclamps, creatures almost identical to scallops in most respects... except that two of them found sitting on the forest floor, well away from water.

** ''Pikmin 3'' introduces waddlepuses, creatures resembling small purple octopi. While this trope is downplayed somewhat -- all waddlepuses are found in the game's water-themed area -- very few of them are actually in the water: almost all waddlepuses are encountered napping on dry land.

** Suketoudara's ''Fever'' era equivalent, the Ocean Prince (Prince Salde in the Japanese originals), is exactly what he sounds like - an anthropomorphic fish who happens to be the prince of the sea. Him breathing on land can be justified because [[spoiler:he actually is biologically a human, but willingly let himself be transformed into a fish to avoid his royal duties]].

* ''WesternAnimation/ZigEtSharko'': The marine creatures have no problem going around on land (in several episodes, Sharko's job is a ''beach lifeguard''), while Zig (a hyena) needs scuba diving equipment to go around underwater.

Compare FlyingSeafoodSpecial, SandIsWater. Many examples of GiantEnemyCrab and/or FishPeople fall under this trope as well, though neither is exclusively terrestrial. May involve TailfinWalking. See also MisplacedWildlife, of which this is a fairly extreme form.