Is Toucan Sam starting a breakfast bestiary? And if so, why?

Of all the cereal brands out there, I wouldn’t have expected Froot Loops to start a weird off-shoot series of pseudo-spiritual successors that draw from the world of myths and mutants. Despite its history with otherworldly creatures, Froot Loops seems a little too innocently avian to flirt with Unicorns and now Mermaids—that’s the kind of crunchy cryptozoology I’d expect from the likes of Kellogg’s own grinning Ra who represents their -isin Bran.

Exclusive to Costco, these Australia-exclusive Mermaid Froot Loops seems like a parallel universe version of Caticorn Cereal, a quasi-Froot Loops pet project that has a temporary Sam’s Club exclusivity here in the states. But while Caticorn Cereal was littered with ghosts of faint fruitiness, Mermaid Froot Loops appear to just be Mardi Grad-colored Loops—though their lack of artificial colors and flavors raise the question of just how genuine the expected Froot Loops fakeness will taste.

today I learned that Australian Kellogg's cereals still exist in a blessed timeline where the mascots didn't mutate into uncanny 3D renders pic.twitter.com/fA1za5Wgis

— Cerealously 🥣 (@cerealouslynet) March 18, 2019

Regardless, Australian Froot Loops deserve my respect, not just for putting a female mascot on a cereal box—an apparently unheard of phenomenon in the U.S. outside of, uh, Dora the Explorer Cereal?—but also for preserving the two-dimensional purity of Toucan Sam, whose American counterpart has become an anthropomorphized terror who would just love to show you how double-jointed his slender, feathered fingers are.

If you’ve tried Mermaid Froot Loops, let me know how they are in the comments. And if you’ve managed to catch another new cereal cryptid on camera, you can share them on our Submissions page—our thanks to Hedvig for the Mermaidian tip.