Cliched Fantasy Animals?

[Iridescence]

Greetings, Earthlings! =D

What types of animals are most cliched in fantasy? Not races, such as elves and dwarves and such, but actual animals. What animals do we see portrayed most in fantasy?? What makes an animal "cliche"?

[Mercy]

Let's see....wolves have been done...foxes...badgers? I'm not quite sure. Rats, too, I think.

[Starry]

DRAGONS. Also, yeah, definitely wolves. And horses and various permutations of talking/intelligent/magical horses, but that may just be in the Young Adult stuff.

Umumum...I know I know a ton, I read fantasy full of animals all the time...

Cats are more a classic than a cliche, though I suppose they could count.

I'll think about this more, and come back to it later.

[Fiction]

Rabbits. Cutesy little freakishly peace-war things.

[Iridescence]

Rabbits. Cutesy little freakishly peace-war things.

Haha! Thou cannot be serious? Rabbits are cliched?

[Bowie20049]

Look at Narnia

[jordanisonfire]

I think wolves the most. Birds of prey, bears, spiders, cats... all I can think of. Sadly, I want to have a wolf in my novels, cos they're so cool. x3

[Lykaios]

Dragons!
Unicorns
Pegasi
Centuars
Wolves
Bears
Mice
[Black] cats
Sprites
Nymphs
Fairies/pixies
Mermaids
Dolphins
Phoenixes
Leprechauns
Ghosts
Sea serpents/land monsters
Crows/rooks/
Ravens
Owls
Banshee/sirens
Basilisks
Genies
Trolls
Goblins
Shades
Werewolves
Demons
Cyclops

. . . And I can't think of any more.

[jordanisonfire]

Not races, Lily. A lot of those could be perceived as races.

[Shaun]

Technically speaking the very premise of this question is illogical since it's asking us to name cliche animals in fantasy, except we can't name animals that for some reason are considered to be outside of the animal spectrum. We're all animals, just different :P.

However, since you seem to not want any mention of sentient, intelligent, bipedal critters, then I submit the following:
--Dragons (they're overdone and pretty much annoying now, with rare exception)
--Horses (they're necessary, but every fantasy novel has them, for the most part)
--Anything with more than two eyes (they're not really scary anymore, to be honest)

Beyond that, I can't really think of anything that makes any sense. Maybe mice/rats? But I don't know if you would consider them to be cliche so much as popularized by a few particularly good movies/books.

Anywho!