Natural Instincts and Traits

Although most of the characters are anthropomorphic, they still have some natural instincts or traits of their real animal counterparts.

Main Characters

Cuddles

• His ears flop down when he is sad.
• In his smoochie, Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow, and A Bit of a Pickle, he seems to like carrots.

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Cuddles with his ears down.

Cuddles about to eat a carrot.

Lumpy

• In Out on a Limb Lumpy moos like a real moose when he is in pain. (Debatable, it could have been a muffled scream due to the object in his mouth.)
• In Snow What? That's What!, Lumpy lays on a hammock shirtless in the winter. As he does not shiver while doing so, Lumpy may have a thick layer of fur, which real moose have for protection against the cold. This could actually be proof of Lumpy embracing his immunity to the cold or simply cooling off. However, in Snow Place to Go, he is briefly seen shivering along with everyone else (likely because it is too cold even for him).
• Lumpy is shown to have a big appetite as seen in episodes like A Hole Lotta Love, Keepin' it Reel, or A Change of Heart. His ability to eat a lot of food without getting full makes sense since a real moose has four seperate sections in the stomach and can eat 50-60 pounds of food a day.
• Lumpy is so far the only character who has been shown to be unable to climb a tree (though it is likely that Mime and Lammy cannot either). This is evidenced in All Flocked Up, in which he has to come up with more creative ways to get a baby bird into its nest while most other characters could have just climbed up, like Flaky in Take a Hike or Mole at the end of the episode. This makes sense because real life moose cannot climb trees at all. However, like most things in the show, this is inconsistent as he is able to climb a tree in Doggone It.

Lumpy mooing.

When you've got a built-in winter coat, you gotta cool off somehow.

Petunia

• In the episode Blind Date, she sprays at Disco Bear when he gets too close, just like real skunks do for defensive purposes (Debatable, as it could have been pepper spray).

Disco Bear sprayed by Petunia.

Sniffles

• Probably the most well-known animal instinct seen on the show is that Sniffles tries to eat ants. He even uses his incredibly long tongue in order to do so, which real anteaters do as well.
• Like real anteaters, Sniffles has poor eyesight, but wears glasses to improve his vision problems.

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Sniffles on his lunch break.

Nutty

• Several times he can be heard making squeaky "chittery" sounds, which sound very similar to a real squirrel's chitters (though this is debatable, as he makes a lot of strange sounds when he is on a sugar high).
• Being a squirrel, he is able to easily to climb trees in Take a Hike, even after stuffing himself with honey.

Nutty in a tree.

Flaky

• She has the ability to climb trees (which is a real ability of porcupines) in Take a Hike.
• Just like other porcupines, she uses her quills when frightened.

Flaky can climb trees.

Russell

• He eats and enjoys seafood.
• He can swim and hold his breath for an extensive amount of time (he needs to be supplied with oxygen in Sea What I Found, but this may have been because he needed to remain underwater for a very long time).
• As is shown in Whose Line Is It Anyway?, he cracks shells open with his chest, much like actual sea otters.

Russell about to eat seafood.

Russell cracks a shell open against his chest.

The Mole

• Like most moles, he lives underground in one episode and even has a molehill house in Out of Sight, Out of Mime and A Sight for Sore Eyes.
• He is blind, the same way most moles are either blind or prone to brightness.

The Mole lives underground.

Lifty & Shifty

• Like many raccoons do, they rummage through garbage in As You Wish.
• Raccoons are well-known for being sneaky and opportunistic.

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Lifty and Shifty in the trash dumpster.

Mime

• Mime's trademark food is peanuts. In real life deer will eat peanuts.

Mime really likes peanuts.

Splendid

• In Helping Helps, he is seen harvesting acorns.

Splendid with an acorn.

Flippy

• He is shown to follow an omnivorous/carnivorous diet like real bears. He is seen consuming the remains of Cuddles, Mime, Shifty, and Lumpy (respectively in Flippin' Burgers, Party Animal, Easy For You to Sleigh and Remains to be Seen).
• In Operation: Tiger Bomb, he makes growling and roaring sounds when attacking the Tiger General.
• Most real-life bears are usually rather gentle creatures (except to their prey), but are known to become extremely violent when provoked, traits which Flippy is famous for.

Flippy eats fries with Cuddles' blood.

Flippy likes Mime's remains.

Pop

• Real male bears are terrible fathers, in the sense that they are dangers for their offspring to be around, as killing cubs, their own or otherwise, is a common practice among male bears. Pop has displayed this behavior toward his son numerous times, as he unintentionally kills Cub on multiple occasions, even killing him intentionally in Read 'em and Weep.

Pop killing Cub

Lammy

• When she talks, screams, or laughs, she bleats like a real sheep.

Other Characters

The Ants

Moreso than other characters, they seem to be anthropomorphic crossed with non-anthropomorphic animals (though Sniffles probably would not try to eat them otherwise). Some examples are as follows.

• They are seen collecting fruit, crumbs, etc.
• They live in an anthill.
• They only let family members or certain ants enter their home.
• When their home or family is under threat from a predator, they fight back.
• They are in seen milking an aphid in Tongue in Cheek. Real ants have been known to "farm" creatures such as aphids as a mutual relationship.

One of the ants collecting bread crumbs.

The anthill they call home.

Buddhist Monkey

• Many times he makes monkey sounds, most notably right before he begins a fight.
• Like monkeys in real life, he is very strong, flexible, and athletic.

Char Sui

• Similar to real pigs, he makes snorting and squealing sounds.

Sneaky

• He can change color and camouflage his body (although this could be with the help of technology, as he becomes entirely invisible, or it may simply be a cartoonish effect). However, the camouflaging ability in real chameleons is just a coincidence, as they normally change color due to their mood (among other things).
• He can climb on/stick to walls.

Sneaky can stick to walls.