It’s okay, not mashed-up in the ‘things you don’t want children doing to animals’ sense. Monki Animal Builder is about building new beasties from different parts.

“Crazy eyes, pig nose and octopus tentacles? Build up fun animals,” as its app store listing puts it. “With six fun characters with different personalities to choose from, they can add lots of different body parts - from octopus tentacles and butterfly wings to elephant trunks and alien arms.”

It’s clearly the month for building monsters: only a few days ago, we were raving about Sago Mini Monsters, which also sees children switching out parts of monsters to make their own creations.

Developed by Monkimun, Monki Animal Builder has more than 30 body parts, and they’re all animated – which encourages children to explore them all, to see what they do when attached to their virtual animal.

Kids can add accessories – the sombrero’s a hit in our household – and then save their beasties for later reference. Also interesting: online sharing, albeit in a way that’s designed to be safe and under the control of parents.

Why share online? Because it means other children using the app can look at your kids’ critters, and vice versa: the aim is a big global gallery of what children have been making around the world.

It’s very fun. Monki Animal Builder is a free download for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, and costs £1.49 for Android from the Google Play store.

Read about more animal apps for kids on Apps Playground, and check out our 100 Best iPad Apps of 2013 e-book – £1.99 from Apple’s iBooks Store