The namesake creatures of the Fantastic Beasts film series that Newt Scamander studied and either keeps in his magical suitcase or meets in his adventures.
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Newt Scamander's suitcase and hideout zoos
Obscurus
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them | Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Credence Barebone) | Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
An Obscurus is a rare magical parasite that hasn't been seen in centuries. It is created by the repression of magic in prepubescent wizards called 'Obscurials' and can cause untold destruction. The only known Obscurus in the modern age is one Newt Scamander found in Sudan.
- Beyond the Impossible: No known Obscurial has survived past the age of ten. Ariana made it to fourteen and didn't die from it and her nephew Credence managed to make it to his early 30s, although it's unclear if he's alive as of the end of the third movie.
- Blessed with Suck: Obscurials are extremely powerful and destructive thanks to their Obscurus, but it's because of this exact entity that none barring one (actually two) have lived past the age of ten.
- Eldritch Abomination: An Obscurus can take the form of an ever-shifting ethereal black cloud of destruction that occasionally manifests horrid spectral faces. They also haven't been seen in the last few centuries, to the point where most of MACUSA doubts one could possibly exist.
- Evil Twin: Dumbledore refers to them as being like evil twins and thinks Credence might be able to suppress his obscurus if he finds a sibling.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: This is how they work in a nutshell, as being created from repressed magic means that the children who become Obscurials are easily mistaken for Muggles or Squibs and typically only reveal otherwise when the child is put under extreme stress.
- The Juggernaut: An Obscurus can plow through concrete and houses like Moses parting the Red Sea, demolish a street, and utterly obliterate anything Muggles can come up with to contain it.
- Miracle-Gro Monster: Newt has imprisoned a regular Obscurus the size of a basketball - due to an Obscurial surviving to adulthood, the resulting Obscurus reaches the size of King Kong.
- One-Winged Angel: Obscurials have the ability to turn into an Eldritch Abomination when in times of extreme emotional distress. The only time we get to see an Obscurus in its full form is at the end of the movie, when Graves pushes Credence into a rampage across New York.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Every Obscurus is controlled, consciously or not, by a child. That child ends up with the power of an enraged eldritch bulldozer, which can smash up literally anything and anyone unlucky enough to get in their way. The Obscurus can even detonate itself like a bomb to clear out everything around it if the child is particularly enraged.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: An Obscurus' M.O.. It's what happens when a particularly powerful magical child is essentially locked in a closet and abused for having magic. It's not actually evil, just scared and angry after a lifetime of pain.
- Remember the New Guy?: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows talks about what happened to Ariana in detail and how she tried to suppress her magic, but the term "Obscurus" isn't mentioned. This is justified in several ways: firstly, Mrs Dumbledore taught her sons to answer questions about Ariana with vague terms and half-truths. Secondly, both Aberforth and Albus felt guilty and enforce Never Speak Ill of the Dead. Thirdly, when others found out about Ariana, they assumed that she was a Squib, a much more common taboo that could explain the situation. Ariana was finally confirmed to be one in the third movie.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: An Obscurus is only created when a young wizard deemed an 'Obscurial' has been forced to repress their magic until it cannot be contained anymore. This makes Obscurials incredibly powerful, but it also ensures their death.
Niffler
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them | Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald | Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Small, cute and fluffy and the best weapon a jewel thief can have, Nifflers are small platypus/mole-like creatures that have a fancy for anything shiny and precious. Newt's Niffler is named Teddy.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: Of sorts. There's a subplot about Nifflers in Goblet of Fire and Lee Jordan sets one loose in Umbridge's office in Order of the Phoenix but they're never mentioned in either movie. It wasn't until Fantastic Beasts that they were put to film but little Teddy has quickly become a staple of the series.
- Bag of Holding: Nifflers have a pouch on their stomachs with which to hold the shiny things they steal. It's magical in nature, able to hold many times the creature's mass and volume without encumbering it in the slightest, as shown when Scamander shakes and tickles Teddy, who then dumps out a pile of stolen goods several times larger than the creature.
- Big Damn Heroes: Teddy and Pickett stage a plot to bust the Scamander brothers out of the German prison in the third movie by stealing back Newt's wand and Theseus' Portkey tie.
- Chekhov's Gun: For two movies, we were shown an impossible creature able to steal everything it likes and unable to stop. The Big Bad owns a shiny trinket that prevents the Big Good from fighting him directly. Make 2 + 2.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Teddy tries to pull this on Newt in a jewelry store. Newt doesn't get fooled, of course.
- Impossible Thief: Nifflers are excellent at infiltration due to their ability to squeeze through slits; Teddy apparently squeezed through the seam in Newt's case and can be seen sliding through the seam in a bank vault to the inside.
- Kid-Appeal Character: Fits the bill due to its funny, cute and mischievous nature.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Rowling said in an interview in 2022 that the design was pitched to her as a cross between a duckbill platypus and a magpie.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: There's no deying Nifflers are cute. Especially as babies.
- Sidekick Creature Nuisance: A small and cute creature which creates much trouble due to its fondness for precious materials.
- Small Role, Big Impact: It's thanks to one of these funny harmless creatures that the blood pact between Dumbledore and Grindelwald is broken, allowing for the Big Good to take down the Big Bad years later.
- Sticky Fingers: Nifflers like to steal shiny things, primarily coins and jewelry.
- Thieving Pet: Attracted by shiny and precious things, and tends to steal them. A nest of Nifflers is seen filled with gold and jewels inside Scamander's suitcase zoo. This ends up coming in handy in the second movie, as Teddy steals the blood pact Dumbledore made with Grindelwald, meaning that Dumbledore now has a chance to destroy it and move against Grindelwald directly.
Swooping Evil
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
A winged creature that emerges from a small cocoon and looks like a cross between a reptile and an extremely large butterfly.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Its predominant colours are blue and green.
- Attack Animal: Scamander uses the Swooping Evil to free himself and Tina from a MACUSA execution cell, support their escape from MACUSA against Aurors and to wrap restraints around Percival Graves.
- Brain Eater: Prey's brains are the first, and possibly only, thing it consumes.
- Canon Foreigner: It was never mentioned before in the Harry Potter canon, including the book that inspired the film.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: When going through the magical suitcase, Newt stops to show off the Swooping Evil, a creature that curls into a ball until it is thrown, causing it to unfurl into a bird-like form. It becomes essential when Goldstein's life is in danger and Newt's wand is nowhere in sight. After that scene, he mainly sticks to regular magic and his wits, but Newt uses it again to catch the main villain off-guard and restrain him.
- Creepy Good: Its name isn't very nice-sounding, its head is a skull, and Newt shoos it off from trying to eat an Auror's brain, but it helps free Tina from MACUSA and helps Newt take down Graves/Grindelwald in the subway fight.
- Deflector Shields: It is able to deflect at least some spells by flying into their path.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Swooping Evil's venom can be used to erase bad memories, although it will kill whoever drinks it if is isn't properly diluted.
- Sizeshifter: It can shrink to get into a small cocoon and be released again from it, not unlike a Pokémon.
- Skull for a Head: There's no skin nor muscles on its head.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: This creature is very useful in combat, with all the abilities listed above.
Occamy
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
The Occamy is a blue serpentine creature with feathers and a beak. They can reach up to 15 feet in length and are aggressive to anyone who approaches them or their eggs, which are sought after for being made of pure silver.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Occamy Jacob inadvertently sets loose when opening Scamander's suitcase grows to an enormous size inside a Macy's attic and ends up the last of the escaped creatures Scamander has to recapture, and the most difficult at that.
- Body to Jewel: Their eggshells are silver, which results in them being targeted by poachers.
- Feathered Fiend: A dangerous animal with feathers.
- Feathered Serpent: Resembles a serpent with avian features, including feathers, wings and a beak.
- Mama Bear: They don't take kindly to people going near their eggs.
- Mascot: Sort of, in the film series' title. The middle "S" in "Beasts" is a stylised Occamy. See here
◊. - Our Dragons Are Different: Occamies may be at least partially based on Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent god of the Aztecs.
- Sizeshifter: They can grow to enormous sizes or shrink enough to be confined in a teapot.
Bowtruckle
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them | Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald| Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Bowtruckles are small twig-like creatures that guard wand-quality-wood trees. Newt's is named Pickett.
- Big Damn Heroes: Pickett and Teddy save the Scamander brothers from the German prison by stealing back Newt's wand and Theseus' Portkey tie.
- Master of Unlocking: They are skilled at picking locks, which comes in handy when Newt has to escape from MACUSA. Unfortunately, it also makes Gnarlak demand Picket as payment for help.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Scamander carries a Bowtruckle on him for most of the film (rather than in his briefcase), as it became deeply attached to him. He named it "Pickett".
- Parrot Pet Position: Pickett stands on Scamander's shoulder sometimes.
- Planimal: A small sentient plant that doesn't need to be rooted in the ground to live.
- Punny Name: "Pickett" (sounding like "pick it") is a very fitting name for a creature good at picking locks.
Thunderbird
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Thunderbirds are large, avian creatures closely related to the phoenix. They can create storms as they fly, and can sense danger. After rescuing one from traffickers in Egypt, Scamander named him Frank, and promised to return him to his natural habitat in Arizona — it's the main reason behind his trip to the USA in 1926.
- Canon Foreigner: It was never mentioned before in the Harry Potter canon, including the book that inspired the film.
- Chekhov's Gunman The Thunderbird appears in Scamander's suitcase to demonstrate its ability to control storms. This ability allows it to take a potion and create an amnesia-inducing rain that prevents the exposure of the Wizarding World to No-Majs.
- Detect Evil: It can sense danger.
- Giant Flyer: Frank the Thunderbird is a an eagle-like creature the size of a tree. His species can only live safely in incredibly spacious and flat areas like the deserts of Arizona; Newt only comes to America because he found Frank being trafficked and needed to come to America to find a safe habitat for him.
- Meaningful Name: A species of giant birds that can create storms.
- Noble Bird of Prey: A majestic eagle-like creature. Dumbledore even mentions to Newt in the second movie that they remind him of noble phoenixes.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: The word Thunderbird is never said onscreen, but it's mentioned in The Crimes of Grindelwald.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Newt being tipped off by his mysterious friend that the Thunderbird was being abused in Egypt is the reason he goes to the U.S. in the first movie and has to travel via New York.
- Thunderbird: Gigantic, serpentine, six-winged birds capable of creating storms as they fly. In the first movie, Newt is trying to relocate a specimen he rescued from animal traffickers in Egypt to Arizona, so as to release him in his species' natural habitat.
- Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: It resembles a six-winged eagle.
- Weather Manipulation: It can create storms and summon massive rainfalls.
Erumpent
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
The Erumpent is a huge African magical beast resembling a rhinoceros. It is a powerful creature, with a thick hide capable of repelling most curses and charms, a single long horn, a head tumor that glows when on oestrus cycle, and a thick tail. They often literally go boom, which is why they're almost extinct...
- Endangered Species: Due to their bad habit of exploding one another.
- Having a Blast: The Erumpent's horn can cause anything it impales to explode, which comes in handy when the Erumpent's prey tries to get to higher ground.
- Horn Attack: The Erumpent's horn contains a deadly fluid that causes whatever it impales to explode. Occasionally occurs when they mate and accidentally strike one another.
- Pheromones: When Scamander tries to recapture his loose Erumpent, he uses Erumpent musk on himself to simulate the presence of a mate and attract the creature back to his suitcase. Jacob inadvertently sprays himself with the musk, which sends the Erumpent charging after him.
- Rhino Rampage: That beast looks like a rhinoceros with a very large head, and can be very destructive when it charges.
- Samus Is a Girl: Jacob is surprised when Newt refers to the Erumpent that escaped the suitcase as female.
Demiguise
Demiguise
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
The Demiguise is a monkey-like beast with long, silvery fur and has the power to turn itself invisible. Newt's Demiguise is named "Dougal".
- Early-Bird Cameo: Its fur was used to make the invisibility cloak in Sorcerer's Stone.
- Futureshadowing: It has the power to foresee the most probable close future.
- Interspecies Adoption: When Newt finds Dougal, he's gathering food for an escaped occamy.
- Invisibility: It can turn itself invisible at will. According to the book, one can weave an Invisibility Cloak out of their fur.
- Mischief-Making Monkey: It steals some food and a kid's lollipop while being invisible.
Nundu
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
A large East African beast that resembles a leopard. It moves silently despite its "gigantic" size, and its breath is toxic and filled with disease so potent that it can wipe out entire villages. The Nundu is extremely hard to subdue.
- Adaptational Wimp: In the Fantastic Beasts book, it's said to be the single most deadly beast known to wizardkind (presumably including the likes of dragons, basilisks, and Dementors), has never been subdued by less than a hundred wizards working together (by contrast, it takes ten wizards or so to subdue a full-grown dragon) and cannot be tamed or domesticated. In the film, Newt has one in his possession; it seems to be perfectly tame and docile, and it's easily outsmarted by a baby Diricawl.
- Panthera Awesome: A deadly big cat with spikes.
Other Beasts
Appear in: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Mainly the beasts who appear in Newt's case but aren't given much focus.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The Doxies (red and black), the Billywigs (bright blue), the Diricawls (blue, green and red), the Fwoopers (bright purple), etc.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: A species-wide case. Diricawls are the true identities of what we know as dodo birds. They actually never went extinct, they just teleported off Mauritius and the Ministry let the Muggle world think they were extinct to make them more environmentally aware.
- Doofy Dodo: The Diricawls, though in the film they don't look much like actual dodo birds.
- Endangered Species: The Graphorns that Newt has are said to be the last breeding pair in existence.
- The Fair Folk: The Doxies, small insectoid fairy-like creatures that bite.
- Feathered Fiend: The Fwooper. It's mostly harmless, but listening to its song for too long can degrade your sanity, so you have to silence it every now and then using a magic spell.
- Heli-Critter: Billywigs are insects that fly by spinning.
- Lunacy: Mooncalves love the moon.
- Overly-Long Tongue: A Fwooper eats a Doxy using one of these.
- Panthera Awesome: Not just the aforementioned Nundu, but also the Graphorns, which are mentioned in the script as resembling saber-toothed tigers.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Fwooper, the Diricawl (and her babies) and the Mooncalves.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The Murtlap's never seen again after Newt catches it very early on, but it biting Jacob serves as the reason the Muggle's not immediately obliviated for seeing magic so he has time to befriend Newt and the Goldsteins.
- Teleporters and Transporters: Diricawls are birds that can teleport at will. In the film, a baby one demonstrates this by teleporting when a Nundu tries to eat it.
- You Don't Look Like You: Apparently, Diricawls are what Muggles know as dodo birds, but they don't look anything like our favorite extinct birds from Mauritius.
Zouwu
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
A powerful magical creature native to China. It's based on the Zouyu.
- Androcles' Lion: Newt freed the beast from its chains and treated it well. It was enough to tame it, and the beast ends up being of great help when it comes to escape the French Ministry of Magic.
- Animal Eyes: The beast's eyes turn feline when in "combat mode".
- Canon Foreigner: The Crimes of Grindelwald marks this creature's first appearance. It was never mentioned in any Wizarding World entry before.
- Cartoony Tail: It has a long and fluffy pink tail.
- Dragons Up the Yin Yang: Its head has elements from mythical Chinese dragons.
- Faster Than They Look: Zouwus are capable of travelling one thousand miles in a day.
- Good Taming, Evil Taming: The beast has been mistreated at the circus and goes on a rampage upon escape as a result. Enters Newt Scamander, who is able to calm it down with a specifically designed toy, captures it in his suitcase, destroys its chains and treats it well.
- Mega Neko: It has some feline shapes, and Scamander considers it as "a big kitten". It even purrrs when Newt gains its trust and gets closer for a hug. What's more, the toy that is used to tame the beast looks like a cat toy.
- Summon Bigger Fish: When Newt, Tina and Leta are cornered by Matagots at the French Ministry of Magic, Newt releases the Zouwu, which is essentially a much bigger cat.
Others
Matagots
Appear in: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Magical beasts that resemble large black sphynx cats.
- All Witches Have Cats: The ones seen in Crimes of Grindelwald are used by the French Ministry of Magic.
- Attack Animal: They serve as messengers at the French Ministry of Magic, but also as "guard dogs" when there's trouble inside.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Normally, they are harmless, but when provoked, they turn into ferocious creatures.
- Canon Foreigner: The Crimes of Grindelwald marks their first appearance in the Wizarding World canon.
- Cats Are Mean: It's better to not provoke them.
- Self-Duplication: They multiply upon being attacked with spells.
- Shout-Out: They might be a reference to one of the most famous French vintage posters, "Le Chat Noir" ("The Black Cat"), which used to advertise a Parisian cabaret of the same name that closed down at the beginning of the 20th century, the same era as the Art Nouveau movement that clearly inspired the designs of the French Ministry of Magic.
Qilin
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
A Kirin or Qilin is a mythical Chinese creature which is associated with the coming or passing of a great leader. Naturally, Grindelwald wants one for his plot to get elected as the head of the International Confederation of Wizards and sends his followers to China to obtain one for him.
- Came Back Wrong: After killing the Qilin whelp, Grindelwald proceeds to reanimate it as a living corpse that will bow to him.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Qilin are very empathic and can tell what's in the heart of a person. They only bow to a pure-hearted person, like Dumbledore.
- Kirin: Close enough to original myths, the Qilin looks like a hybrid of deer and dragon and is considered a rare and majestic creature, close to pure-hearted people.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Its design◊ looks like a mash-up of a deer and a unicorn. In the movie-proper it is a deer-like animal with fish-like scales on the sides and a crocodilian back.
Manticore
Appears in: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
An extremely ferocious, magical monster said to have the head of a man, body of a lion and tail of a scorpion, one of the most dangerous monsters of the Magical World. A hive of arthropod-like manticores, lead by a titanic, man-eating Queen, dwells in the German prison of Erkstag, ready to attack and consume any intruder unprotected by light.
- Atrocious Arthropods: The manticores as they appear in the movie are definitively scorpion-like not just in their tails, but also in their whole bodies, sporting chitinous appendages and mandibles filled with teeth.
- Attack of the Monster Appendage: At first, the only thing we see of the Queen Manticore are a long feeler and the huge scorpion tail, used to stab a poor prisoner and drag him into the pit to be eaten. Eventually, the beast emerges from its hole when Theseus accidentally steps on one of its babies.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: It's implied that the Queen Manticore turns on the jerkass jailer when his own lantern goes dark right as he's trying to checking on it.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: As per myth, these manticores have scorpion tails, though no barbs or additional spikes.
- Cognizant Limbs: When Newt and Theseus use the Portkey as they're about to be devoured and are teleported to Hogwarts, one of the tentacles is mutilated, but soon slithers away on its own as if alive and enters the water.
- Combat Tentacles: These manticores have four long, chitin-covered tentacles ending in a feeler-filled bud. Newt manages to pacify them by waving his arm in a certain motion which is emulated by the smaller manticores.
- Darkness Equals Death: The Queen Manticore seems to only attack in complete darkness, impaling with her tail prisoners whose only lantern (a small firefly-like bug in a jar) goes out.
- Large and in Charge: The normal manticores are about the size of a cat, their Queen is large enough to swallow a man whole and spit the skeleton out unbroken.
- MacGuffin Guardian: The Queen Manticore and its colony are used to guard the cells of Erkstag, where Theseus was imprisoned by Vogel.
- Mama Bear: The Queen normally attacks cells whose lantern snuff out, but turns on Theseus and Newt when the former crushes one of the smaller manticores underfoot by mistake.
- Our Manticores Are Spinier: While in the book and previous entries they are described as the classical lion/human/scorpion hybrid, here they're monstrous arthropod monsters with tentacles for front legs. They rather resemble the Blast-Ended Skrewts described in Book 4 of the Harry Potter series.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Once riled up, the Queen almost destroys the entire prison to get at Newt and Theseus.
- Swallowed Whole: The Queen Manticore does this to her victims, spitting out an half-digested but intact skeleton covered in green goo for her children to feast upon.
- You Don't Look Like You: Rather than being an human-headed lionine monster with a scorpion tail, now the manticores are distinctly arthropod-like in shape and bug-like in behaviour, being a hive of small manticores with a colossal Queen.
