It doesn't look like a duck, act like a duck, or quack like a duck. But everyone around you insists it's a duck. Just as Speculative Fiction authors like to give regular animals funny names, they also like to invent wild new creatures, give them the names of familiar animals, and plunk them down into their settings to run amok. The differences between the smeerps and their real-world counterparts can range from mild -- such as "dogs" that have spiked backs and three tails in addition to all their normally canine traits -- to extreme, such as bipedal, poison-spitting, frilled reptiles with saddles being referred to as "horses".