Hey gang! Just wanted to share some observations and thoughts about the types of creatures you generally see in fantasy books.
It strikes me as very ironic that fantasy authors will go to great lengths to create strange, magical creatures to make their worlds seem more fantastic and exotic but when it comes time to work on the "normal" animals they demonstrate a shocking lack of originality. Almost every fantasy author uses the same basic animals as the normal fauna of their worlds: deer, wolves, rabbits, bears, foxes, squirrels, snakes etc. All of these are animals common to western Europe and North America. C. S. Lewis broke from this pattern a bit by throwing some exotic animals such as apes, cheetahs, and lions into Narnia, but even then the Talking Beasts that usually played the biggest roles were ones familiar to Western Society. If you really want some creative creatures, why not look and see what the Pro has already done and borrow some of them? I'm not demeaning the use of magical creatures in fantasy, I'm just saying that it's more than plausible that a world in which Dragons and Behemoths and Dufflepuds roam freely would have a greater variety of species than just what most Americans are familiar with. Wouldn't it be great fun to have your hero look up from the road he's traveling and see a sugar glider coasting over his head or for the villain to have a pet howler monkey?
It just seems to me that if God gave us such a great variety of wildlife in our world, it's a bit silly that all fantasy books only use the same few species. I mean obviously, we're writing novels and not biological profiles, but still, there are other large mammals that live in forests and are good for food besides deer.Another thought is about demystifying fantastic critters. I understand that in a lot of cases the fantastical creatures are rare, but for those that aren't why do the people that live around them still act like they are. For instance, if your world has a creature with the body of a horse, legs of a lion, and head of a tiger, would horses really have been domesticated as pack animals and mounts? I know, that may seem less fantastic and exotic to some, but I think that horse/lion/tiger-riders are a lot more fantasy feeling than a regular cavalry. What if one of your races suddenly discovered that your non-race dragons were really tasty? Would the deer population be able to sleep in safety?
I know there was something else I wanted to add, but I've had this post open for hours and I can't remember what it is, so I'm just going to post it and hope I remember the last thought later. Hope this helps!
But I very much like the idea of having a greater variety of creatures, and your point about "demystifying" the fantastic creatures is excellent.
Thanks for your thought-provoking posts, Seer. 
But good point. Still, this *is* fantasy we're talking about, so I think it would be pretty easy to dream up an animal different from horses that can carry humans and are fast.
