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Dare to compare the hare's hair.

A sub-category of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics and Long Hair Is Feminine, this is when female anthropomorphic animals have human-like heads of hair while their male counterparts do not. So while males are free to have what looks like a "bald" head (or at most, tufts of fur on their head indicating hair), females must have a more "obvious" indicator of their gender (the other option would be hiding the perceived "baldness" with hair accessories à la Minnie Mouse). Lions are probably the most common exception to this, since the male's mane is so universally known that switching it around would just look weird (although females with manes and males without them actually can exist).

Non-mammal examples overlap with Non-Mammalian Hair.

Is the little sister trope to Non-Mammal Mammaries and a Sub-Trope of Humanoid Female Animal and Animal Gender-Bender. See Animal Facial Hair and Furry Baldness for male animal hair tropes. Compare Ears as Hair, in which a character's long ears are shaped in a way to resemble long hair.


Examples:

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    Advertising 

    Anime and Manga 
  • In BNA: Brand New Animal male Beastmen lose most of their cranial hair when they shift to beast form, while most Beastwomen keep theirs. Oddly main character Michiru's hair turns the same color palette as her tail, blue with black tips.
  • Topaz (who's a Yorkshire Terrier) from Jewelpet has flowing light brown hair that's as long as she is tall. Pretty bizarre as no other Jewelpets, female or male, have such hair/fur.

    Comic Books 
  • Albedo: Erma Felna EDF: The Felna family, who are cats, has the rare genetic trait of the female members having thick human like head hair. Averted by most everyone else.
  • Blacksad: Females have human hair, males don't. Males do, however, occasionally have fur tufts that look like hair. The only aversion so far is Chad in Amarillo.
  • Katmandu: Subverted where everyone, males and females alike, have human hair, through theirs normally match at times with the color of their furs.
  • Omega Men: The natives of Karna are essentially cat people, though the males look more alien and have fur about the same length everywhere and the females are more human in appearance and have long hair atop their heads and such short fur everywhere else that some artists draw them as not having fur at all.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) plays this straight with many of its Canon Foreigner female characters (and often males too). In comparison, SegaSonic canon characters tend to avert this. Bunnie is one example where she originally averted this trope and had a Tuft of Head Fur but was later given long hair.
    • Sonic the Comic averts this with much of the cast, but it also plays this trope straight:
      • Morain is a fox kit like Tails but has longer bangs and a ponytail.
      • Tekno combines this with Non-Mammalian Hair. She is a canary with short hair.
  • Peter Porker: The Spectacular Spider-Ham: The female characters in Marvel Comics' Animal Superhero series, such as Mary-Jane Waterbuffalo and the Scarlet Pooch, all have long hair, in a different shade to their fur. Peter himself has the brown hair of his human counterpart, but is otherwise furless, being a pig. And Nick Furry, Agent of S.H.E.E.P., somehow has stubble growing over his fur.
  • Usagi Yojimbo: All female characters have hair; most civilian male characters are "bald"; samurai have topknots of black hair (male rabbits like Usagi use their Ears as Hair).

    Fan Works 

    Film — Animation 
  • Occurs with the female characters in An American Tail, though Tony Toponi is one male inversion. Tanya Mousekewitz plays it straight in Fievel Goes West but averts it in the other movies.
  • Somewhat inverted with the mice in The Great Mouse Detective. For example, Olivia Flaversham doesn't have human-like head hair, but her father, Hiram Flaversham, has head hair (albeit balding, leaving just fur on the crown) and a moustasche. Miss Kitty Mouse lacks human-like head hair too. The majority of the mice (whether male or female) however, don't have human-like head hair, though Dr. Dawson does have a moustasche.
  • Inverted in The Jungle Book where Hathi Jr, a male baby elephant has human hair on his head. Played straight with his mother Winifred in the show Jungle Cubs where she is shown as a calf as with her eventual husband Colonel Hathi, however.
  • Both of the squirrels from The Return of Hanuman have short white hair.
  • Averted in Robin Hood (1973). Maid Marian achieves some flowing-hair effect by wearing a thin veil over a hat that fits neatly over her ears.
  • Beans from Rango.
  • In a non-furry example, Ogre Fiona and other female ogres from the Shrek movies have hair on their head, but the male ogres (like Shrek) are bald with or without a few stands.
  • Kate in Alpha and Omega. She even flips it.
  • The Lion King takes advantage of real hyenas' neck manes to make it more evident that Shenzi is female. While the three of them have manes, Shenzi's is the only one that does not thin when reaching the head but becomes longer and falls over its eyes (it also serves as a reference to voice-actress Whoopi Goldberg's trademark dreadlocks). It's on the other hand inverted with the lions, obviously.
  • Averted in Flushed Away. Rita, a female mouse, has red hair on her head. Roddy, a male mouse, also has a full head of brown hair on his head. And so does every other mammal character in the movie, except for those who are meant to be... er... 'bald', like Whitey the lab rat.
  • Rare non-animal example: Cars actually both inverts this, averts this, and plays this straight, where many of the vehicles in the film lack any "hair", except for Luigi and his Uncle Topolino, who have vinyl toupees; Professor Z who has damaged wiring on his roof resembling a bald head; Rastacarian, who has black wiring on his roof resembling dreadlocks; and Signora Bernoulli, who has black wiring hiding under her scarf.
  • In Once Upon a Forest Abigail has hair, but so does just about every mouse character, even males. The rest of the main characters don't have it.
  • A variation in 9. Number 7 has a feather sticking out of her helmet that is meant to resemble a ponytail.
  • Leafie, a Hen into the Wild inverts this trope: The two main male duck characters and most if not all of the background male ducks have "hair" (really feathers), but most if not all of the female characters lack these.
  • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer:
    • Inverted in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1998). Rudolph and Arrow have blond-looking fur on their heads while Zoey does not. In fact some of the male and female reindeer are depicted with blonde hair, notably a group of young reindeer singing carols with the Elves.
    • The 1964 special inverts this with Fireball, who is a buck who has fur on his head.
    • Rudolph is also depicted with blonde hair in the 1981 Golden Book version of "Rudolph's Shines Again" (later known as "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Shines Again" from 1954).
  • Played With in Escape from Planet Earth—the female aliens from Baab have some sort of flap on their head which resembles hair, while the males are bald. The "hair" also tends to be odd colors. See here to compare Kira to her husband and son.
  • Played With in Planet 51. Most of the inhabitants of Planet 51 have vestigial tentacles growing out the tops of their heads that visually function as hair.
  • The Secret of NIMH: Mrs. Brisby has tufts of fur that sort of look like a short, boyish haircut, while her oldest daughter has a tuft of fur as bangs and a large pink bow on top of her head. Nicodemus has floor-length white hair and an equally long mustache. The sequel has Mrs. Brisby's head fur graying at the tips, but all her children, along with Jenny and most of the Thorn Valley mice (not the rats) have heads of hair.
  • In Lady and the Tramp Lady's ears are designed so they look like loose pigtails. Peg's ears are also drawn to be very long and bushy, along with a mane on top of her head to give the impression of long shaggy hair. The male dogs' ears in the film are drawn much shorter. Lady herself is a rare justified case, because she's a purebred Cocker Spaniel, and purebreds...pretty much just look like that.
  • Oliver & Company has this for both of the main female dogs, although this is somewhat fitting due to their breeds. Rita, who's either an Afgan Hound or a Saluki, has long fur running down her head and ears. Likewise, Georgette is a poodle, whose fur has been cut in such a way that her ears resemble pigtails. This "ears as hair" trend is also seen on several other blatantly female dogs who briefly appear throughout the film. Tito, however, is a male example, being a chihuahua who for some reason has a tuft of orange hair on his head.
  • Dixie in The Fox and the Hound 2. Her design sticks out like a sore thumb, as none of the other animals in the film or even in the first movie have hair like that.

    Literature 
  • In The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, a child spinoff of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, some female characters, such as Sophie Squirrel, have human-like hair.
  • Snork Maiden from The Moomins. Though averted with Moominmama who is shown as female by her handbag accessory. This is likely to establish that Snork Maiden isn't related to the family.
  • The Geronimo Stilton is an overall very straight example, with most of the major female charters (Petunia Pretty Paws, Bugsy Wugsy/Pandora, Creepella Von Cacklefur, The Shadow, and the Thea Sisters) having this in effect, while major male characters like Geronimo himself, Benjamin and Trap tend to be bald. Thea herself is a rare aversion having no mane. Villain Sally Ratmousen was another exception in the original books, but was given a full mane of red hair in the Animated Adaptation.

    Music 
  • "The Hippopotomus Song", in which two courting hippos sing the praises of mud, refers to the female "combing her hair".

    Puppet Shows 
  • The Muppet Show:
    • The main feature distinguishing Fozzie Bear and his mother is Ma Bear's grey curls.
    • There is of course the long blonde hair of Miss Piggy.
  • Sesame Street
    • Stretching the definition of "animal" slightly, female monsters are more likely to have head-hair over their fur than male ones (although this isn't unknown, either). The most prominent examples are Zoe (who has bunches the same colour as her fur) and Rosita (who has a slight multicoloured mop). Like Ma Bear, above, the female relatives of male monsters often have an Uncanny Family Resemblance apart from the addition of hair.
    • In the UK spin-off The Furchester Hotel, Phoebe has a ponytail a slightly darker shade of purple than her fur and Funella has yellow fur and a bright red topknot (and also a sort of yoke or boa the same colour).
    • Sesame Street is also home to Meryl Sheep, who has a Meryl Streep hairstyle entirely distinct from her wool.
  • The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss: Pam-I-Am, Sam-I-Am's female counterpart, has pink hair that matches the color of her body.

    Video Games 
  • Crash Bandicoot: Tawna and Coco Bandicoot have blonde hair.
  • Berri in Conker's Bad Fur Day
  • In the flashback of Dusty Revenge, Dusty's fiancée Daisy has short, humanoid hair. It's worth noting no other female animal character, like Gladdius the feline Fortune Teller, the feline bandits and Kitsune the Fox (from the prequel Dusty Raging Fist), have this feature.
  • Gurdy the moogle from Final Fantasy XII, though the rest of her brothers (except for Horne) has this too. Note that the rest of the moogles in the game are bald.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Inverted in the Super Mario Bros series games where most of the male Koopalings, as well as Bowser and Bowser Jr. have hair, while Wendy O. Koopa, the only female Koopaling, does not. Roy is the only male koopaling completely without hair while Morton has Unusual Eyebrows and only 3 strands of hair on top of his head.
    • Played straight in Super Paper Mario, where most Koopas don't have hair, except for the only female Koopas, Koopie Koo and Kammy Koopa.
    • A non-furry example happens with the anthropomorphic mushrooms known as "Toads". Female Toads have pigtails built into their caps while males do not, though some males like Toadsworth can be distinguished by facial hair.
  • In Donkey Kong Country, all of the female Kongs (Dixie Kong, Candy Kong, Tiny Kong, and Wrinkly Kong) all have human-like hair on their heads; indeed, Dixie and Tiny even glide and attack with Prehensile Hair. Swanky Kong sort of does as well, but he'd be the only male Kong with hair. Cranky Kong has a long white beard and male-pattern baldness over his brown fur.
  • Celine the rat in the Ratatouille video game and Kinect Rush: A Disney-Pixar Adventure has head fur that has a semblance to short, humanlike head hair, including bangs, which the male rats don't have.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Most of the females avert this. For example, Amy (a hedgehog) styles her quills into a bob while Rouge (a bat) doesn't even have fluff on her head.
    • Blaze the Cat has purple hair in a ponytail.
    • Cream's mother Vanilla is distinguished from her by having a bit of hair.
    • Honey the Cat of Sonic the Fighters is just Honey from Fighting Vipers but as a Funny Animal cat. She stands out against the canon Sonic characters by having yellow fur against a black mop of hair.
  • Inverted in Undertale with the goatlike Toriel and Asgore. Toriel is female and lacks this sort of characteristic, while the male Asgore has a blonde mane and beard. Played straight with some of the other mammalian monsters, such as Catty, the library patrons who work at the newspaper... and of course Temmie.
  • This is often the case in Sly Cooper with Sly and Bentley's love interests Carmelita and Penelope having hair while they have none.
  • In Star Fox, Krystal is an example of this with blue hair. Unusually, her design for Dinosaur Planet (which was retooled into Star Fox Adventures) shows she didn't have any hair.
  • Spyro the Dragon:

    Web Animation 
  • Flaky, the porcupine from Happy Tree Friends, has her quills treated as long hair. They even react to a hair growth tonic in "Easy Comb, Easy Go", leading to catastrophic events. They're also full of dandruff.
  • In Wings, several of the wolfiin have hair. The protagonist Dawn has long blue hair.
  • Wolf Song: The Movie has it where most of the females have noticeable locks of hair atop them, of course there are a few exceptions and protagonist Kara has hers include a blue lock of hair despite the rest of her fur being yellow, but she started off as an exception before gaining wolf form and becomes an exception at the end of the final battle as the horn snapping off her pure of heart form translated to removing her locks, somehow causing minor bleeding from this, having her fur be of a more natural form.

    Webcomics 
  • Most female characters on Sabrina Online. The eponymous skunk has short white hair, her kid sister Tabitha has white pigtails, Amy has long blonde hair, Zig Zag has long silver hair, etc. Sabrina's boyfriend R.C. also has hair.
  • Played straight throughout Kevin & Kell, except for lions: Males have the large mane; females have no additional cranial hair.
  • Florence Ambrose, an genetically altered red wolf in Freefall, has human-style hair for visual gender identification purposes. Mark Stanley mentioned in the Fourth-Wall Mail Slot thread that had he started drawing her today, he wouldn't have included the hair to indicate her gender.
  • The female foxes in Faux Pas have longer fur on the back of their heads to suggest hair.
  • In Lackadaisy, only the female characters have human-like styled hair, with the male ones looking more realistically cat-like with no hair in addition to their regular fur.
    • In one of the bonus comics, this fact is called attention to. The author then decides to allow a glimpse into a world where the boys have hair.
  • Carry On subverts it: The women actually wear wigs.
    • In later strips, the author changed her position and things have been retconned such that at least the hyena main characters now actually have real long hair.
  • It'd be easier to talk about characters on Last Res0rt who DON'T have hair...
  • Averted in The Cyantian Chronicles, both genders have hair. Male wolves in particular tend to wear it long.
  • In The Whiteboard, most of the female funny animals are given human style hair on their head, while with the exception of Jake none of the males have it. When Roger was gender-bent after getting zapped due to pressing a button labeled "do not press", his female version instantly grew human style hair.
  • Nin Wah in Commander Kitty is the only girl among the main cast to sport one, with Zenith settling for a pair of tiny curls and Freeda averting it completely.
  • The female furries in Stubble Trouble (those who aren't shaved, anyway) have human-like hair in addition to their fur.
  • Averted by Felicia, Sorceress of Katara, but played straight by a number of other female characters, largely Katarans, canids like Felicia tend to have normal fur (but are no less attractive).
  • DNA: Several of the Xs, including both males and females, have much longer hair on their heads than the rest of their body, and in some cases it is also a different color.
  • Played straight with Chiro and Queen Felicia in The Fuzzy Princess, who both have hair. Averted with Princess Kat, however.
  • Every female furry character in Sequential Art have human hair styles. Because all the female furries have curvaceous female humanoid bodies, their hair isn't needed to identify their gender, but it does help to tell Scarlet apart from her sisters, who would all look identical without it. In a subversion, of the four male furries to be featured (not including Pip), 3 of them also have human hair styles.
  • Though it's not quite hair, Indigo from PRISMWING has a prominent setae-do.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • Gadget Hackwrench from Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers has long, flowing head hair while Chip, Dale and Monterey Jack are either bald or only have tufts. Tammy the squirrel also has styleable head hair, but Foxglove averts this by only having tufts of fur.
  • Daisy Duck is occasionally a borderline example, depending on the show:
    • Her "classic" design averts this trope, although she does have long tufts of feathers on the back of her head. This makes for hilarity in Disney Party, a game based on Mario Party, where Daisy is rendered in classical style... with her sound when being damaged being "My Hair!"
    • Quack Pack exaggerates her tufts so that they look like a pixie cut, but they still look like "styled" feathers.
    • House of Mouse Daisy is a pretty straight example, as she has a very long ponytail, though at least it's white like her feathers.
    • Mickey Mouse Clubhouse marks the return of the ponytail but it's much shorter and seems a little more like feathers.
    • Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers just straight up gives her long blonde hair.
  • Played with in Darkwing Duck: Whilst Morgana, Gosalyn and the other female characters have hair, Drake/Darkwing, Honker and most other males don't. Inverted by Launchpad and Tank, who have hair.
  • In Dinosaur Train, the male Troodons only have a few feathers on their heads, but the females' resemble human hairstyles. For example, the Conductor's mother's looks like curly hair, while Tricia's resembles a short bob.
  • Many of the female characters in Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, including Dogtanian's love interest, Juliette, have human-like hair.
  • Some female characters in DuckTales (1987), like Mrs. Beakly and Magica De Spell, had hair.
    • It's more common in the remake, with Webby and most other female ducks having hair. (Usually white, like their feathers.)
  • Played with in The Dreamstone, most of the Noops, male or female, have visible hair, but Amberley's mane is definitely more evident than for male characters like Rufus. All the Wuts have manes, though the female Wildit is made divergent for having a different style.
  • The titular protagonist of Elinor Wonders Why and a few other female characters have distinctive manes, though it doesn't apply to all of them.
  • A non-mammalian example in Futurama: Most male robots' heads only have antennae or other accessories (except for iZac, who has an afro and mustache), while females have different-colored metal on their heads, looking like either feminine hairdos, like Angleline's, human hair wigs like the Crushinator's, or fin-like mohawks like Monique's. The few exceptions to that rule are when female robots look way too abstract to resemble humans at all, for the sake of a joke.
  • Most male characters in Harvey Beaks have little to no demarcation between head hair and bodily fur. Most female characters (besides Princess) have hair that is clearly separate and often a different color than the rest of their body. Foo and Fee, whatever they are, may be the most extreme contrast: Foo has a tuft of fur on each cheek and what appears to be either swirled Idiot Hair or some kind of antenna. Fee has an enormous canopy of bright purple hair against brown fur.
  • Cleo from Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats had long blonde human hair. The only other cats to have hair on their heads were Wordsworth, who had a lock of longer hair on his forehead, and Hector.
  • Eugly the rabbit from Kaeloo has orange hair tied up in pigtails, while the rest of her body is pink. In season 5, Eugly's sister Pretty (who used to have Ears as Hair) also gains hair as part of an Expository Hairstyle Change.
  • Played straight with Minka, Pepper, and Zoe from Littlest Pet Shop (2012). Averted with Penny, who doesn't even have a tuft, and Buttercream (she has a bow though). Vinnie, a male gecko has hair as well.
  • Looney Tunes:
    • Petunia Pig has a full head of hair, but Porky Pig doesn't.
    • Lola Bunny in Space Jam has a larger, blonde tuft of hair on her head, but has her ears tied up in a ponytail as a substitute for long hair. Bugs Bunny only has smaller tufts.
    • Lola's long-running, print-only predecessor, Honey Bunny, averted the trope. She did sometimes arrange her ears to resemble a hairstyle, though.
    • Similarly, Melissa Duck has a full head of hair, but Daffy Duck doesn't.
    • Subverted in The Looney Tunes Show. Tina Russo also has a full head of hair, but an episode shows that even her father (male) has hairs.
  • The Loud House: Bella, Lucy's direct rabbit counterpart from "White Hare," does not have a full mane, but still has Lucy's eye-covering front hair. This is unusual for Bella, as every other animal character from the episode (of which a whole majority are females) either has no representation of hair, a tuft of head fur, or uses their Ears as Hair.
  • Exaggerated in The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog, every anthropomorphic animal, including males, have human-like hair.
  • Mousey Galore from Pinky and the Brain is a straight example, but Billie subverts this by having a large, stylish cowlick of fur.
  • In the TV series of Brian Jacques' Redwall novels, Rose in the Martin the Warrior arc has a long ponytail, despite human-like hair being avoided or only mildly used in earlier seasons.
  • Although not a furry, Smurfette from The Smurfs (1981) embodies the spirit of this trope: Males of a species can be bald but females must have plenty of head hair.
  • Played straight and averted in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Sally and Lupe have a mane of hair, while Bunnie only has a tuft of fur on her forehead. Most male characters have just fur, though Antoine has a blond cut and some elderly characters such as Uncle Chuck and King Acorn have mustaches.
  • Rebecca in TaleSpin, and her daughter Molly.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures:
    • Shirley The Loon and Fifi La Fume have a full head of hair, but Buster Bunny, Plucky Duck, Furrball, Hamton J. Pig, and other male Tiny Toons don't.
    • Averted with Babs Bunny, who only has a few tufts of fur on her head. In a few cases, she styles her ears as though it was hair.
  • Rare plant example: Many of the female characters from VeggieTales, with the sole exception being Mrs. Asparagus.
  • Sophia Tutu in The Raccoons is an aardvark and has long blue curly hair whilst other aardvarks like Cedric and Cyril only have their ears and a couple of tufts. Most female aardvarks on the show have hair but no ears.
    • Lisa Raccoon subverts this as she has a ponytail to match her fur color.
    • Even Lady Baden-Baden subverts the trope by having buns to match her feathers.
  • Played in spirit in Shaun the Sheep: a female sheep and Shaun's Love Interest have long blonde wool around her head, whilst all other sheep have short white wool.

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