We introduce the hydra continued fractions, as a generalization of the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fractions, and give a combinatorial interpretation in terms of shift-plethystic trees. We then show it is possible to express them as a quotient of m-distinct partition generating functions, and in its dual form as a quotient of the generating functions of compositions with contiguous rises upper bounded by m-1. We obtain new generating functions for compositions according to their local minima, for partitions with a prescribed set of rises, and for compositions with prescribed sets of contiguous differences.