Things Better Left Unvisited:

Exactly What It Sounds Like, Mates.

Now, if you're the sort of person who thinks armadillos are reptiles regardless of all that "they're warm-blooded and have fur" nonsense and has no idea how closely related a Tyrannosaurus is to a common turkey, you WILL be forgiven by me for not being a bit confused by the unusual and often downright wrong anatomy and biology and physiology displayed by the creatures in the Redwallverse. But if you are purposefully writing a series of books aimed (appropriately or not) at impressionable kids it's pretty damn important to at least get some of the basics right.

Like not forgetting that "amphibian" is a thing.

There's so many it's almost not funny. Here's a happy fun selection of generic examples of things that happen in Redwall which would either be impossible or would brand the poor creatures as deformed mutants:

*Hare and Rabbits--Ought To Be Cacophages*

The bally mob of hares, who were previously scoffing the jolly old feast, doncha know, leave off for a moment and squat, making a veritable hail of little pellets the likes of which the shocked Abbeybeasts have never seen.

Father Abbot's about to chide them for being so crass and not going to the non-existent lavatory first when the hares grin cheekily and immediately begin eating something other than blackberry pudding.

Mass chaos ensues as the maddened Abbeyfolk loose their heads at the sight and proceed to begin murdering each other and torching the Abbey.

*Shrews and Moles--Powerful Relentless Predators*

The happy squirrel family hopped playfully through the woods, on the way to brunch with the moles of Moledeep. They were very glad the notoriously friendly subterranean beasts had invited them; they were so very amused by their cute little accents, their apparent genetic predisposition to be illiterate yet somehow do such complex tasks that would surly require advanced mathematics.

However, as the squirrels rounded the corner expecting a massive turnip 'n' tater 'n' beetroot pie they turned white at the sight of the cheerful moles roasting a long row of twitching earthworms and dead lizards over a roaring fire. They fainted.

*Snakes Are Not Magic*

The big burly otter tramped through the brush, but stopped suddenly when he heard a hiss in the shrubs ahead of him. Freezing, he reached out and pushed the foliage away, revealing an adder coiled up on a rock staring at him with wide slitted eyes.

"Oh crap!" he thought fearfully, "an ADDER! It must be the physical incarnation of evil, and trying to hypnotize me!"

The otter stared at the snake. The snake stared at the otter. Finally the adder spoke, revealing by voice that it was a young female.

"Ummm... aren't you going to do anything?"

"Wha-what?"

"Like... attack me? That's what you were doing, right? That's kinda why I coiled up in self-defense like this?"

"Uh, y' mean I'm not...Wait, that's what it is? I thought it were you slimy snakes gettin' ready to hypnotize an' bite some pore goodbeast."

"Ummm...No. You're, like, twice my size. And snakes can't hypnotize things. That's birds freezing when they see us."

"Oh, alrighty. Well, I'm gonna avoid the trend in these books of mercilessly slaughtering you even though you're just defendin' yoreself an' I stumbled on you. See ye later!"

*The Toads...Just...The Toads...*

A toad living in the dunes awoke one day and felt something was off. Going to a polished brass mirror, he looked up expecting himself to have, uh, anatomy resembling a toad's.

"WHAT THE HELL?! MY FACE! MY FEET! WHAT IS WRONG WITH MEEEEEEEEEEE?! WHY AM I ALL SLIMY AND GREEEEEEN?! WHY DO I HAVE CLAWS?! WHY DO I HAVE GILLS!? AND HOW'D I GET SO DAMN FAT?! I WAS ALMOST PURE MUSCLE YESTERDAY!"

He looks over and sees a shrew in a cage, presumably being fattened up.

"What the hell? Why're you in here?! Toads eat bugs, everyone knows that. Oh, sure, maybe a mouse or two, but not kept in a slave pen for weeks. That's humans!"

*Eels Aren't Snakes. They Are Freaking Fish*

The mighty eel reared its suddenly ugly head out of the water, except that it didn't because they aren't capable of doing that.

Okay... So it slithered its way out of the swampy water, doing untold carnage on the nearby camp for hours and hours regardless of the fact that it can't breathe outside of water!

Well, er, okay, it died about twenty minutes after leaving the water, writhing around pathetically for a bit as it realized that its gills were drying out. It died with a snakey hiss... right?

Nope. No it didn't. Eels aren't snakes. EELS DON'T EVEN HAVE VOCAL CORDS FOR HISSING.

*Birds Don't Have Superpowers Just Because They Fly*

A large gathering of birds have come together, for some reason. There's an osprey, a cormorant, a gannet, a snow goose, a robin and a little owl Abbeydweller.

First off, the cormorant is humongous compared to the osprey, but for some reason is whining and cowering in a corner about how the osprey is going to eat him. The osprey gives the cormorant a weird look and takes off, soaring over a lake full of delicious pike. He dives for one, latching onto the big fish's back and lifting it clear of the wave--oh, nevermind, he was dragged into the water by the sheer weight of the pike, which the idiot should have known he would not be able to lift.

Then the pike of the lake proceed to--oh, nevermind, pike don't do that. Piranhas don't even do that. It's a SHAAAAAAAAAAM!

The snow goose and gannet get into a fight, for some reason. Unlike in the book where this actually happens, the snow goose wins easily because snow geese are freaking huge compared to skinny like gannets and have about 22 lbs on the seabirds easily. That's a lot for a bird considering a gannet only weighs 12 lbs. The snow goose is a 600-lb sumo wrestler about to crush the gannet, which is a tall skinny guy who only weighs 200 by the virtue of his long dangly limbs.

All the while the robin snacks on candied chestnuts, seemingly not realizing that his species is one of pure insectivores. He gets terribly ill from a life of an inappropriately vegan diet and keels over dead of protein deficiency.

Two paces away the little owl from the Abbey smugly looks on until he too realizes that he ought to be eating only animal matter instead of lettuce and kale. The owl keels over dead of protein deficiency. The osprey, having not been torn apart by pike that don't do that, emerges from the lake sopping wet and looks on the scene.

"Man, we've really been screwed with, haven't we?"

More may follow. If you like, you may leave an as-of-yet unanswered bit of unusual Redwall yore as a suggestion, but it is more than likely I'll cover the grand majority of oddness and unmentioned unmentionableness.