When deciding what to name stories about groups of living beings, a creator might just pick the name for a collection of such beings, which leads to this trope.
But this is for the cases where the title is named for the whole group of living beings, not just a distinct subset.
For example, "redheads" and "brunettes" are grouped as People of Hair Color, but they can have kids together, who could be called "humans" just like their parents, so that's their Species. But if there's some Either/Or Offspring situation, then that's not true and both of the groups are separate species.
In some cases, the original population may have dwindled down to a small group (or maybe there was never very many to begin with) and have a team name in addition to a species name. If the work is a Team Title, then the two tropes overlap.
Because a species name is usually one word, expect much overlap from One-Word Title.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ajin: One-Word Title named after the term for the undead beings of the story.
- Digimon: Refers to the titular “digital monsters”, data-based life forms that can transform into other forms. They’re often partnered with human protagonists, and are often the center of the story.
- Bakugan: It focuses on the people who fight with the titular toys to Save the World.
- Devilman: Named after what the humans who merge with demons are called.
- Gyo: Japanese for "fish", in this case referring to the sea creatures that suddenly gained legs and caused havoc on the surface.
- Parasyte: Refers to the parasitic creatures infiltrating human society by merging with them.
Comic Books
- The Inhumans: A ancient kingdom made up of ultraterrestrials who are mutated and empowered by mysterious mist. Also a Family Title, as all of them are related, and they also isolated themselves to "Attilan" a.k.a "The Great Refuge", a walled city on an island in the Atlantic sea.
- The Eternals: An completely immortal race of Flying Brick ultraterrestrials created by the Celestials.
- Girls: Referring to Bizarre Alien Biology beings that only look like human girls.
- The Smurfs: About a village of tiny blue creatures called Smurfs.
- Trees: Subverted Trope. Not actually about the plants. It's just what the humans call the huge alien towers that landed on Earth.
- The Walking Dead: It's named after the In-Universe term for zombies.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: The chapter, "The Flopping Dead", named for the aquatic undead that are the focus of the chapter.
- Marionettes: Marionettes are the name for artifical ponies, who can't reproduce without magical help.
- The Spiderses: A Troll Fic in which My Little Pony characters are accidentally transformed into spiderses.
- Zombies: Named for the Zombie Apocalypse premise.
Films — Animation
- Antz: The movie is set in an insect perspective where ants are the main characters.
- The Boxtrolls: About the titular creatures who are trolls that wear boxes and live in the sewers.
- Cars: The movie is about a world of living cars.
- Dinosaur: Although named in the singular, the movie is about dinosaurs in the plural.
- Lucky and Zorba: The original Italian title, La gabbianella e il gatto, translates to "The little seagull and the cat".
- Minions: The origin story of the creatures that serve as Gru's henchmen in the Despicable Me franchise.
- Planes: The movie is about a world of living planes.
- Robots: The movie is about a world of robots.
- Trolls: About creatures that are called trolls, and is the story of their Princess Protagonist and a cynic of the species to rescue the rest of them from being eaten.
Films — Live-Action
- Aliens: A sequel to Alien with Ellen Ripley and her crew investigating the moon and finding that it wasn't a lone creature, but a member of a whole species. Crosses over with Antagonist Title.
- Bats: About genetically engineered killer bats.
- The Birds: The Hitchcock horror classic has a murder of various birds as the main antagonists.
- Played with in the case of the eco-horror film Frogs. Most of the killing is done by other critters, such as alligators, snakes, spiders, and lizards. The frogs (actually cane toad stand-ins) are only depicted as killing Old Man Crockett, though we never see how they accomplish this on-screen.
- Gremlins: About the odd creatures with a penchant for havoc and terror.
- The Species series, about Half-Human Hybrids with aliens.
Literature
- Gnomes: About gnomes of various types and their lives.
- The Langoliers: Antagonist Title for the Clock Roaches, technically, but they don't really have a known species name, that's just what the characters call them. The actual Langoliers are boogeymen from Craig Toomy's childhood who ate people who wasted time, and Craig identifies the literal time-eating monsters with them.
- The Moomins: The Moomins are trolls that vaguely resemble hippopotamuses.
- Partials: A group of Artificial Humans who started a civil war against the normal humans, leading into the conflict the series centers around.
Live-Action TV
- Dinosaurs: For the work as a whole and an episode:
- The work is a puppet show series about a family of dinosaurs.
- The episode, "Endangered Species", is about the grapdelites, who are undergoing an Adam and Eve Plot.
- Humans: Not actually about humans in the general. It's about five androids who are made to be more human, and the world they live in.
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: The plot is going to revolve around the eponymous kaijus.
- Mulawin: The eponymous Mulawins are bird-like Winged Humanoids.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Season 2 episode "Cardassians" centres on Dr. Bashir being dragged into an internal political dispute between several very high-ranking Cardassians; the experience allows both him and the audience to learn more about this race, their society, and two important recurring Cardassian characters (Gul Dukat and Garak).
Theatre
- Cats is about singing cats.
Toys
- Tamagotchi: A Virtual Pet allowing the owner to raise cute aliens.
Video Games
- Bugsnax: The game is about bug-like creatures resembling food called Bugsnax and you capture them for consumption.
- Digimon: A Virtual Pet device franchise about releasing the titular Digital Monsters from cyberspace to ally with kids to fight evil Digimon.
- Fortune Summoners: The in-game book: The Elm: Myth & Mystery, about the Gnome-Elf hybrids known as the Elm.
- Lemmings: Named for the creatures whose paths are controlled by the player to reach a goal.
- Metroid is named after a species of biologically engineered Life Drinkers that Samus Aran must frequently wipe off of various planets to keep them from being used as bioweapons by the Space Pirates.
- The Pikmin series involves the titular plant-based creatures that obey the command of the Player Character of each game to fight the dangerous beasts of the initially unnamed Planet, later named PNF-404, and explore the planet and sometimes repair some important ship component so the Player Character can leave.
- Pokémon: Named after the strange animals with elemental powers that are the focus of the series of games.
Web Animation
- RWBY: The World of Remnant mini-series that aired between Volumes 2-4 of the main show had the following episodes:
- Grimm: This episode introduces the Creatures of Grimm; while many different types of Grimm exist in the show, this episode only discusses the general characteristics and behaviours that are common to all Grimm.
- Faunus: This episode delves into the background of the Faunus, the species that shares Remnant with humanity. Although Faunus and Humans are considered separate species, they can produce children together. These children are not hybrids. They will be either Human or Faunus, with a Faunus outcome being the most common.
Web Comics
- Housepets!: Initially only about the titular animals (in-universe, slightly distinct from our world's housepets due to their intelligence and anthropomorphism), but quickly became an Artifact Title as more characters were introduced.
- Goblins: About adventuring goblins in a fantasy world.
Western Animation
- The Clangers: About the family that are the only known example of their species. A CBeebies production.
- The Doozers: About a species of creature called Doozers.
- Ewoks: About the race of teddy-bear like aliens on the forest moon Endor, originally featured in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
- Fluppy Dogs: About a group of dog-like creatures who journeyed in-between worlds with use of a special crystal key that allows them to open a doorway that leads them to another world.
- Gargoyles: Centers mainly on the Manhattan (né Wyvern) Clan.
- Monchhichis: About a race of monkey-like creatures who live in a treetop kingdom.
- Popples: About creatures that can turn into balls and also pull things out of their pockets via hammerspace.
- The Raccoons: About a trio of raccoons (though more raccoon characters were introduced as the series progressed) and their animal friends.
- The Snorks: About an undersea species called Snorks (named for the snorkel-like appendages on their heads).
- Trollz: About boys and girls of the troll species. Mainly the girls, though.
