Semiaquatic Species Sailor - TV Tropes

"Aye, I come from a whole family of pirates. Gramps used to say, 'The Krabs Clan has been pirates for as long as we've had claws.'"

• My Hero Academia: The pro hero Selkie's quirk gives him the powers and appearance of a humanoid spotted seal. He and his team patrol the ocean, performing search and rescue operations and fighting modern-day pirates. Tsuyu Asui, whose quirk gives her the powers of a frog, naturally ends up with him for her hero internship.

• Rasmus Klump has Captain Skæg, a seal who commands the Mary.

• Ice Age: Continental Drift: Flynn the elephant seal and Silas the petrel (with feet like a blue-footed booby) are members of Captain Gutt's pirate crew.
• Seal Team (2021) plays with this. They are technically naval officers and the intro shows Claggart on a ship, but otherwise they are more overtly styled after '80s action heroes.

• Muppet Treasure Island: The role of Captain Smollett is naturally given to Kermit the Frog. Aditionally, instead of having a parrot named Cpt. Flint on his shoulder, Long John Silver has a lobster named Polly.

• The Dr. Franklin's Island character Semi gets turned into a manta ray-like creature; even after being turned back, she's still a Little Bit Beastly and able to breathe water for a while. When escaping the island by boat, she reveals to the audience that she's a reasonably capable sailor, and catches fish several times by just going into the water and hunting them.
• The only animal among the ship's crew in The Hunting of the Snark is a Beaver. However, we never see it do much sailing and none of the human crew members occupations have anything to do with water, so how intentional this was is debatable.
• Redwall:
  • The majority of otters are sailors or fishermen. The leaders are typically known as "skippers", a term usually referring to the captain of a boat or small ship.
  • In addition to the aforementioned otters there are also many 'Sea Rat' pirates (while rats are not generally found in water they are still excellent swimmers), and the Guosim shrews (who are basically a band of nomadic riverboat sailors) are probably supposed to be Eurasian Water Shrews.
  • Marlfox has the Riverhead tribe, made up of Irish-accented watervoles who keep a number of small boats and are shown to be good sailors. One of them (Burble) joins the heroes on the quest after the Riverheads unwittingly (and unwillingly) provide the heroes with a boat when Burble steals it (the heroes had traded a jewel for it, but Burble stole both from their selfish self-appointed leader before he could double-cross them).
• The Water Rat (vole) in The Wind in the Willows loves messing about in boats. Toad is a subversion; he's initally introduced in a boat, but he's not very good at it and quickly passes over it for new hobbies. While these animals stay on the river, the Sea Rat is a grizzled old sailor who has travelled across the world in ships.

• In Ironclaw the portrait of an otter in the species chapter is fishing with a harpoon, while the seal appears to be diving for shellfish.

• In Fabuland, the resident sea captain is a Warm-Hearted Walrus named Wilfred Walrus.
• In Piratix, various semiaquatic animals make up members of pirate teams in the series:
  • The Seaside Crew includes octopus Captain Deep Water, Crocodile Crooky Dale, and sea turtle Speedy Shelly.
  • The Show Band Crew includes seal Charlie Seal.
  • While The Abyssal Crew is primarily fully aquatic, it also contains the squid Mace Tentacle.
  • The Frost Bones Crew includes penguin Fin Frosty.
  • Exclusive pirates include lobster Captain Bobster, hermit crab Captain Hermit, and whale Captain Big Blue.

• Animal Crossing:
  • Gulliver is a seagull who is also a sailor.
  • Kapp'n is a sea turtle (though he's a kappa in the original Japanese release) who takes the player to nearby islands with a boat. He also speaks in sailor slang (as does the rest of his family).
  • Animal Crossing: New Horizons introduces Gullivarr, Gulliver's Identical Stranger who is also a seagull, but unlike him, he's a pirate.
• Banjo-Kazooie has Captain Blubber, a hippopotamus pirate captain.
  • Jolly Roger, a pirate-themed barman in Banjo-Tooie, is a frog.
• Club Penguin: Captain Rockhopper, a penguin, is a Friendly Pirate. He travels beyond the island on his ship, the Migrator, and he often visits the island and brings back treasures.
• Donkey Kong:
  • The Snowmads from Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze are a Viking crew of animals from Grim Up North. Although the crew consists of a variety of animals, the leader, Lord Fredrik, and the Elite Mooks, the Waldoughs, are walruses.
  • In Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, the crocodilian Kremlings have a pirate motif. Their leader is also fought on a boat known as the "Gangplank Galleon" in the original.
  • In Donkey Kong Country Returns there are pirate crabs that command a whole fleet. The Scurvy Crew is a Wolfpack Boss consisting of the three highest-ranking pirate crabs.
• The cruise ship S.S. Literally Can't Sink from A Hat in Time is captained by a walrus and crewed by seals. Despite their semi-aquatic status, they aren't particularly good sailors.
• High Seas Havoc: Havoc and Tide are seals who are Friendly Pirates. The main antagonist, Bernardo, is a pirate captain walrus. However, the other members of Bernardo's pirate crew are non-aquatic animals.
• Pirate101 features the full spectrum of this principle in its anthropomorphic characters. There are frog smugglers and pelican fishermen, playing it straight, but there are also pirates who are completely aquatic, such as sharks and crabs. But it's not an exclusive rule, and you'll find sailors of all races, from rodents and dogs to monkeys, and even unicorns. Of course, since it takes place in a World in the Sky, there's no reason it would seem especially attractive to species with an affinity for water.
• Shipwrecked 64: Bucky Beaver is a beaver who wears a sailor outfit and is a fisherman by trade, with his Implied Love Interest Olive Otter helping him on his fishing trips. His frenemy Giovanni Goose went along for the ride the day they were shipwrecked on an island, and his adoptive younger brother Walter Walrus accompanied them on a separate boat of his own.
• In Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, the very first enemies are pirates. The guards are walruses, while Sir Rayleigh, their captain, is a frog.
• Discussed in Viva Piñata. The Quackberry (duck) house is a shipwreck, and its description asks why pirates kept Parrybos (parrots) as pets if Parrybos can't swim.
• Xenogears: The Thames has an unnamed captain who's a walrus and his second mate is a dolphin called Hans. Bart's ship Yggdrasil also has a dolphin crewmate who's responsible for operating the radar and who likes to record various sounds.

• Happy Tree Friends: Russell the sea otter is a pirate.
• Puffin Forest: Ottie Otterton is, as indicated by the name, an otter. He quickly reveals to the W.O.R.S.T. that he's a sailor.

• In Beyond the Western Deep, the otter-like Lutren are one of the two races of Sunsgrove known for their seafaring. Though the other, more piratically-bent, species, the Polcan, are more like ferrets.

• Alfred J. Kwak: Waterland's entire navy seems to consist of seals, save for Colonel Rangpang who's an orangutan. Stoppel, a cargo ship's captain, is a walrus and his entire crew consists of seals. Also the titular Alfred, a duck, was a sea scout as a kid alongside his classmates Hannes and Wannes who are geese.
• A non-anthro example in the Bob's Burgers episode "Mutiny on the Windbreaker"; the cruise ship's captain, Captain Flarty, has a pet capybara named Kiki.
• BoJack Horseman: Neal McBeal is a seal and a Navy SEAL who fought in the naval forces in Afghanistan.
• Dinosaur Train: The Old Spinosaurus has a pirate accent and acts like a stereotypical fisherman.
• Donald Duck himself may be the Trope Maker, being a duck and a sailor.
• DuckTales (2017): In addition to Donald Duck, there are seagull and pelican sailors who frequent the Duckburg harbor.
• Bill the Platypus from Fluffy Gardens lives on a boat and wears a sailor hat.
• In Muppet Babies (1984), Baby Kermit the Frog wears a sailor suit, in contrast to his nearly-naked adult counterpart. "The Daily Muppet" begins with him having a dream where he gets roped into a naval submarine with other frog sailors.
• The Octonauts: Three members of the crew fit this trope: Peso who is a penguin, Barnacles who is a polar bear, and Shellington who is a sea otter. The rest of the crew includes one fully-aquatic creature, Professor Inkling the octopus, and the rest are all land mammals.
• Peep and the Big Wide World: Quack, a duck, always wears a sailor hat (that looks a bit like a paper boat.)
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Although the whole series takes place underwater, it's notable that the character who uses the most stereotypical sailing motifs is Mr. Krabs, a crab — crabs can live both on land and in the water.
• Squiddly Diddly: Played with. Squiddly is an octopus, an animal that is mainly aquatic (though they can move on land), yet spends most of his time on land. He wears a sailor cap, sailor's shirt, and kerchief.
• The Wuzzles: Crocosaurus, who is half-crocodile, wears a sailor captain's hat.