Some animals possess elemental bending powers. Their bending may be overt, as with creatures such as badgermoles which can be trivially observed to use earthbending, or subtle, as with the flying lemur, which uses airbending to fly when it would otherwise only be able to glide due to its limited upper body musculature.
Mythology describes various instances of humans learning bending from observation of bending animals, and indeed this is a motif in the legends of many peoples with a bending culture. Whatever the role bending animals may have played, the origins of human bending are lost in prehistory.
=== Waterbending Animals
Earthbending Animals
Firebending Animals
Airbending Animals
Flying Bison
The Sky Bison figured prominently in the development of the Air Nomad culture, being the principle animal herded by airbending nomads. They were once widely used as a means of transport, though they can be temperamental (especially toward non-airbenders) and so the industry of transport with flying bison was dominated by Air Nomads. Because of their foundational role in the economy of the Air Nomads, and important cultural role, the Fire Nation targeted the species during the Air Nomad genocide. They employed methods such as shooting them down wherever they were directly encountered, exterminating them with poison baits after burning their grazing lands, and ruining the mountainous valleys of the Air Nation in which they gathered seasonally to calve. Accordingly, the animals are very rare today, though some isolated herds are reported.