Post by jynxDaemon on Oct 19, 2009 15:22:55 GMT -5
Anteater
A great spined anteater, more than twenty feet in length, shuffled about the edges of the camp. We saw its long, thin tongue dart in and out of its mouth. The blond-haired barbarian crept closer to me. “It is harmless,” I said, “unless you cross its path or disturb it.” It lived on the white ants, or termites, of the vicinity, breaking apart their high, towering nests of toughened clay, some of them thirty-five feet in height, with its mighty claws, then darting its four-foot-long tongue, coated with adhesive saliva, among the nest’s startled occupants, drawing thousands in a matter of moments into its narrow, tubelike mouth.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 293}
Bosk
The bosk, without which the Wagon Peoples could not live, is an oxlike creature. It is a huge, shambling animal, with a thick, humped neck and long, shaggy hair. It has a wide head and tiny red eyes, a temper to match that of a sleen, and two long, wicked horns that reach out from its head and suddenly curve forward to terminate in fearful points. Some of these horns, on the larger animals, measured from tip to tip, exceed the length of two spears. Not only does the flesh of the bosk and the milk of its cows furnish the Wagon Peoples with food and drink, but its hides cover the domelike wagons in which they dwell; its tanned and sewn skins cover their bodies; the leather of its hump is used for their shields; its sinews forms their thread; its bones and horns are split and tooled into implements of a hundred sorts, from awls, punches and spoons to drinking flagons and weapon tips; its hoofs are used for glues; its oils are used to grease their bodies against the cold. Even the dung of the bosk finds its uses on the treeless prairies, being dried and used for fuel. The bosk is said to be the Mother of the Wagon Peoples, and they reverence it as such
{Nomads of GOR ~ 4}
The bosk is a large, horned, shambling ruminant of the Gorean plains. It is herded below the Gorean equator by the Wagon Peoples, but there are Bosk herds on ranches in the north as well, and peasants often keep some of the animals.
{Raiders of GOR ~ 26}
Deer
“Perhaps,” suggested Gorm, “it is diseased or injured, and can no longer hunt the swift deer of the north?”
{Marauders of GOR ~ 108}
Frevet
“That is not an urt,” said the proprietor. “They usually come out after dark. There is too much noise and movement fro them during the day.” The small animal skittered backward, with a sound of claws on the boards. Its eyes gleamed in the reflected light of the lamp. “Generally, too, they do not come this high,” said the proprietor. “That is a frevet.” The frevet is a small, quick, mammalian insectivore. “We have several in the house,” he said. “They control the insects, the beetles and lice, and such.”
Boabissia was silent.
“Not every insula furnishes frevets,” said the proprietor. “They are charming as well as useful creatures. You will probably grow fond of them. You will probably wish to keep your door open at night, for coolness, and to give access to them. They cannot gnaw through walls like urts, you know.”
“Is it far now,” I asked.
“No,” said the proprietor. “We are almost there. It is just under the roof.”
“It seems we have come a long way.” I said.
“Not really,” he said. “We are not really so high up. The flights are short.”
We then climbed another flight, to the next landing.
“Oh!” said Boabissia, recoiling.
“You see,” said the proprietor. “You will come to like the frevets.”
{Mercenaries of GOR ~ 276}
Gatch
On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts. Several varieties of tarsk, large and small, also inhabit this zone
{Explorers of GOR ~ 312}
Giani
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man
{Explorers of GOR ~ 312}
Hurt
Cernus of Ar wore a coarse black robe, woven probably from the wool of the bounding, two legged Hurt, a domesticated marsupial raised in large numbers in the environs of several of Gor’s Northern Cities. The Hurt, raised on large, fenced ranches, herded by domesticated sleen and sheered by chained slaves, replaces its wool four times a year.
{Assassin of GOR ~ 39}
Kaiila
The sand kaiila, or desert kaiila, is a kaiila, and handles similarly, but it is not identically the same animal which is indigenous, domestic and wild, in the middle latitudes of Gor’s southern hemisphere; that animal, used as a mount by the Wagon Peoples, is not found in the northern hemisphere of Gor; there is obviously a phylogenetic affinity between the two varieties, or species; I conjecture, though I do not know, that the sand kaiila is a desert-adapted mutation of the subequatorial stock; both animals are lofty, proud, silken creatures, long-necked and smooth-gaited; both are triply lidded, the third lid being a transparent membrane, of great utility in the blasts of the dry storms of the southern plains or the Tahari; both creatures are comparable in size, ranging from some twenty to twenty-two hands at the shoulder; both are swift; both have incredible stamina; under ideal conditions both can range six hundred pasangs in a day; in the dune country, of course, in the heavy, sliding sands, a march of fifty pasangs is considered good; both, too, I might mention, are high-strung, vicious-tempered animals; in pelt the southern kaiila ranges from a rich gold to black; the sand kaiila, on the other hand, are almost all tawny, though I have seen black sand kaiila; differences, some of them striking and important, however, exist between the animals; most notably, perhaps, the sand kaiila suckles its young; the southern kaiila are viviparous, but the young, within hours after birth, hunt by instinct; the mother delivers the young in the vicinity of game; whereas there is game in the Tahari, birds, small mammals, an occasional sand sleen, and some species of Tabuk, it is rare; the suckling of the young in the sand kaiila is a valuable trait in the survival of the animal; kaiila milk, like verr milk, is used by the peoples of the Tahari; it is reddish and has a strong salty taste; it contains much ferrous sulfate; a similar difference between the two animals, or two sorts of kaiila, is that the sand kaiila is omnivorous, whereas the southern kaiila is strictly carnivorous; both have storage tissues; if necessary, both can go several days without water; the southern kaiila also, however, has a storage stomach, and can go several days without meat; the sand kaiila, unfortunately, must feed more frequently; some of the pack animals in a caravan are used in carrying fodder; whatever is needed, and is not available enroute, must be carried; sometimes, with a mounted herdsman, caravan kaiila are released to hunt Tabuk; a more trivial difference between the sand kaiila and the southern kaiila is that the paws of the sand kaiila are much broader, the digits even webbed with leathery fibers, and heavily padded, than those of its southern counterpart.
{Tribesmen of GOR ~ 70}
The mount of the Wagon Peoples, unknown in the northern hemispheres of Gor, is the terrifying but beautiful kaiila. It is a silken, carnivorous, lofty creature, graceful, long-necked, smooth-gaited. It is viviparous and undoubtedly mammalian .A kaiila, which normally stands about twenty to twenty-two hands at the shoulder, can cover as much as six hundred pasangs in a single day’s riding. The head of the kaiila bears two large eyes, one on each side, but these eyes are triply lidded, probably an adaptation to the environment which occasionally is wracked by severe storms of wind and dust; the adaptation, actually a transparent third lid, permits the animal to move as it wishes under conditions that force other prairie animals to back into the wind, or like the sleen, to burrow into the ground
{Nomads of GOR ~ 13}
Kailiauk
The kailiauk in question, incidently, is the kailiauk of the Barrens. It is a gigantic, dangerous beast, often standing from twenty to twenty five hands at the shoulder and weighing as much as four thousand pounds. It is almost never hunted on foot except in deep snow, in which it is almost helpless.
{Savages of GOR ~ 40}
Kailiauk are four-legged, wide-headed, lumbering, stocky ruminants. Their herds are usually found in the savannahs and plains north and south of the rain forests, but some herds frequent the forests as well. These animals are short-trunked and tawny. They commonly have brown and reddish bars on th e haunches. The males, tridentlike, have three horns. These horns bristle from their foreheads. The males are usually about ten hands at the shoulders and the females about eight hands. The males average about four hundred to five hundred Gorean stone in w eight, some sixteen hundred to two thousand pounds, and the females average about three to four hundred Gorean stone in weight, some twelve hundred to sixteen hundred pounds.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 93}
Even past me there thundered a lumbering herd of startled, short-bunked kailiauk, a stocky, awkward ruminant of the plains, tawny, wild, heavy, their haunches marked in red and brown bars, their wide heads bristling with a trident of horns;
{Nomads of GOR ~ 2}
Larl
In spite of my hatred of Priest-Kings I could not help but admire them. None of the men below the mountains, the mortals, had ever succeeded in taming a larl. Even larl cubs when found and raised by men would, on reaching their majority, on some night, in a sudden burst of atavistic fury slay their masters and under the three hurtling moons of Gor lope from the dwellings of men, driven by what instincts I know not, to seek the mountains where they were born. A case is known of a larl who traveled more than twenty-five hundred pasangs to seek a certain shallow crevice in the Voltai in which he had been whelped. He was slain at its mouth. Hunters had followed him. One among them, an old man who had originally been one of the party that had captured the animal, identified the place.
{Priest Kings of GOR ~ 18}
The larl’s head is broad, sometimes more than two feet across, and shaped roughly like a triangle, giving its skull something of the cast of a viper’s save that of course it is furred and the pupils of the eyes like the cat’s and unlike the viper’s, can range from knifelike slits in the broad daylight to dark, inquisitive moons in the night. The pelt of the larl is normally a tawny red or a sable black. The black larl, which is predominantly nocturnal, is maned, both male and female. The red larl, which hunts whenever hungry, regardless of the hour, and is the more common variety, possesses no mane. Females of both varieties tend generally to be slightly smaller than the males, but are quite as aggressive and sometimes even more dangerous, particularly in the late fall and winter of the year when they are likely to be hunting for their cubs. I had once killed a male red larl in the Voltai Range within pasangs of the city of Ar.
{Priest-Kings of GOR ~ 18}
I was struck with wonder, though I was careful to keep beyond the range of their chains, for I had never seen white larls before.
They were gigantic beasts, superb specimens, perhaps eight feet at the shoulder.
Their upper canine fangs, like daggers mounted in their jaws, must have been at least a foot in length and extended well below their jaws in the manner of ancient saber-toothed tigers. The four nostril slits of each animal were flared and their great chests lifted and fell with the intensity of their excitement. Their tails, long and tufted at the end, lashed back and forth.
{Priest-Kings of GOR ~ 22}
Some four days into the mountains I heard for the first time in my journey the sound of a thing other than the wind, the sighing of snow and the groaning of ice; it was the sound of a living thing; the sound of a mountain larl. The larl is a predator, clawed and fanged, quite large, often standing seven feet at the shoulder. I think it would be fair to say that it is substantially feline; at any rate its grace and sinuous power remind me of the smaller but similarly fearsome jungle cats of my old world. The resemblance is, I suppose, due to the mechanics of convergent evolution, both animals having been shaped by the exigencies of the chase, the stealth of the approach and the sudden charge, and by the requirement of the swift and devastating kill. If there is an optimum configuration for a land predator, I suppose on my old world the palm must go to the Bengal tiger; but on Gor the prize belongs indisputably to the mountain larl; and I cannot but believe that the structural similarities between the two animals, though of different worlds, are more than a matter of accident
{Priest Kings of GOR ~ 18}
Lart
The hunter pulled a pelt from the bundle of furs he carried. It was snowy white, and thick, the winter fur of a two-stomached snow lart. It almost seemed to glisten. The slaver’s man appreciated its value. Such a pelt could sell in Ar for half a silver tarsk. He took the pelt and examined it. The snow lart hunts in the sun. The food in the second stomach can be held almost indefinitely. It is filled in the fall and must last the lart through the winter night, which lasts months, the number of months depending on the latitude of his individual territory. It is not a large animal. It is about ten inches high and weighs between eight and twelve pounds. It is mammalian, and has four legs. It eats bird’s eggs and preys on the leem, a small arctic rodent, some five to ten ounces in weight, which hibernates during the winter.
{Beasts of GOR ~ 74}
Leem
The hunter drew forth from the bundle of furs two tiny pelts of the leem. These were brown, the summer coats of the animals.
{Beasts of GOR ~ 74}
Monkey {Guernon, Jit}
Gently we lowered the canoe. While the others held it I, with rocks, braced it that it might not slip backwards down the grade. Trees surrounded us. Overhead bright jungle birds flew. We could hear the chattering of guernon monkeys about.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 307}
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
Panthers
On the jungle floor, as well, are found jungle larls and jungle panthers, of diverse kinds, and many smaller catlike predators. These, on the whole, however, avoid men. They are less dangerous in the rain forest, generally, than in the northern latitudes. I do not know why this should be the case. Perhaps it is because in the rain forest food is usually plentiful for them, and, thus, there is little temptation for them to transgress the boundaries of their customary prey categories. They will, however, upon occasion, particularly if provoked or challenged, attack with dispatch.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
He had worn at his loins the pelts of the yellow panther.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 236}
Porcupine
Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
Qualae
I saw what I first thought was a shadow, but as the tarn passed, it scattered into a scampering flock of tiny creatures, probably the small, three-toed mammals called qualae, dun-colored and with a stiff, brushy mane of black hair.
{Tarnsman of GOR ~ 140}
Slee
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
Sloth
Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
Squirrel
Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
Tabuk
The tabuk is the most common Gorean antelope, a small graceful animal, one-horned and yellow, that haunts the Ka-la-na thickets of the planet and occasionally ventures daintily into its meadows in search of berries and salt. It is also one of the favorite kills of a tarn.
{Outlaw of GOR ~ 126}
They were northern tabuk, massive, tawny and swift, many of them ten hands at the shoulder, a quite different animal from the small, yellow-pelted antelope-like quadruped of the south. On the other hand, they too were distinguished by the single horn of the tabuk. On these animals, however, that object, in swirling ivory, was often, at its base, some two and one half inches in diameter, and better than a yard in length. A charging tabuk, because of the swiftness of its reflexes, is quite a dangerous animal
{Beasts of GOR ~ 152}
Some varieties of prairie tabuk, interestingly, when sensing danger, tend to lie down. This is counterinstinctual for most varieties of tabuk, which, when sensing danger, tend to freeze, in a tense, standing position and then, if alarmed further, tend to scurry away, depending on their agility and speed to escape the predators. The standing position, of course, as is the case with bipedalian creatures, tends to increase their scanning range. The response disposition of lying down, apparently selected for in some varieties of tabuk, tends to be usefull in an environment in which high grass is plentifull and one of the most common predators depends primarily on vision to detect and locate its prey. This predator, as would be expected, normally attacks from a direction in which its shadow does not precede it. Any tabuk, of course, if it is sufficiently alarmed, will bound away. It can attain short-term speeds of from eighty to ninety pasangs an Ahn. Its evasive leaps, in the Gorean gravity, can cover from thrity to forty feet in length, and attain heights of ten to fifteen feet.
{Blood Brothers of GOR ~ 316}
Tarsier
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
Tarsk
In the forests there were sleen and panthers, and fierce tarsks.
{Hunters of GOR ~ 67}
I heard the squealing of a domestic tarsk running nearby, its feet scuttling in the woven rence of the island, as on a mat. A child was crying out, chasing it.
{Raiders of GOR ~ 16}
Still later that afternoon some groups of small, fat, grunting, bristly, brindled, shaggy-maned, hoofed, flat-snouted, rooting animals had been herded in, also with pointed sticks, and they, too, had been guided into identical cages. We had looked out of our cage, our fingers hooked in the mesh, to other cages, some of them with girls in them, some with the fat, flat-snouted, grunting, short-legged, brindled quadrupeds.
“Those are tarsks,” said one of the Gorean girls.
{Dancer of GOR ~ 108}
Urt
Behind the man, in the stern, lay the bloody, white-furred bodies of two canal urts. One would have weighed about sixty pounds, and the other, I speculate, about seventy-five or eighty pounds.
{Savages of GOR ~ 67}
It was a giant urt, fat, sleek and white; it bared it three rows of needlelike white teeth at me and squealed in anger; two horns, tusks like flat crescents curved from its jaw; another two horns, similar to the first, modifications of the bony tissue forming the upper ridge of the eye socket, protruded over those gleaming eyes that seemed to feast themselves upon me, as it waiting the permission of the keeper to hurl itself on its feeding trough. Its fat body trembled with anticipation.
{Outlaw of GOR ~ 86}
Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
We may perhaps, somewhat loosely, speak of this first zone as the “floor,” or, better, “ground zone,” of the rain forest. In the level of the emergents there live primarily birds, in particular parrots, long-billed fleers, and needle-tailed lits. Monkeys and tree urts, and snakes and insects, however, can also be found in this highest level
{Explorers of GOR ~ 31}
Over her shoulder she had two small, furred animals, hideous forest urts, about the size of cats, and in her left hand she carried four small, green-and-yellow-plumaged birds.
{Captive of GOR ~ 237}
Vart
Perhaps most I dreaded those nights filled with the shrieks of the vart pack, a blind, batlike swarm of flying rodents, each the size of a small dog. They could strip a carcass in a matter of minutes
{Outlaw of GOR ~ 26}
I could, however, recognize a row of brown varts, clinging upside down like large matted fists of teeth and fur and leather on the heavy, bare, scarred branch in their case
{Priest-Kings of GOR ~ 191}
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
Verr
The verr was a mountain goat indigenous to the Voltai. It was a wild, agile, ill-tempered beast, long-haired and spiral-horned. Among the Voltai crags it would be worth one’s life to come within twenty yards of one.
{Priest-Kings of GOR ~ 63}
Zeder
There is, however, a sleenlike animal, though much smaller, about two feet in length and some eight to ten pounds in weight, the zeder, which frequents the Ua and her tributaries. It knifes through the water by day and, at night, returns to its nest, built from sticks and mud in the branches of a tree overlooking the water.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 312}
A great spined anteater, more than twenty feet in length, shuffled about the edges of the camp. We saw its long, thin tongue dart in and out of its mouth. The blond-haired barbarian crept closer to me. “It is harmless,” I said, “unless you cross its path or disturb it.” It lived on the white ants, or termites, of the vicinity, breaking apart their high, towering nests of toughened clay, some of them thirty-five feet in height, with its mighty claws, then darting its four-foot-long tongue, coated with adhesive saliva, among the nest’s startled occupants, drawing thousands in a matter of moments into its narrow, tubelike mouth.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 293}
Bosk
The bosk, without which the Wagon Peoples could not live, is an oxlike creature. It is a huge, shambling animal, with a thick, humped neck and long, shaggy hair. It has a wide head and tiny red eyes, a temper to match that of a sleen, and two long, wicked horns that reach out from its head and suddenly curve forward to terminate in fearful points. Some of these horns, on the larger animals, measured from tip to tip, exceed the length of two spears. Not only does the flesh of the bosk and the milk of its cows furnish the Wagon Peoples with food and drink, but its hides cover the domelike wagons in which they dwell; its tanned and sewn skins cover their bodies; the leather of its hump is used for their shields; its sinews forms their thread; its bones and horns are split and tooled into implements of a hundred sorts, from awls, punches and spoons to drinking flagons and weapon tips; its hoofs are used for glues; its oils are used to grease their bodies against the cold. Even the dung of the bosk finds its uses on the treeless prairies, being dried and used for fuel. The bosk is said to be the Mother of the Wagon Peoples, and they reverence it as such
{Nomads of GOR ~ 4}
The bosk is a large, horned, shambling ruminant of the Gorean plains. It is herded below the Gorean equator by the Wagon Peoples, but there are Bosk herds on ranches in the north as well, and peasants often keep some of the animals.
{Raiders of GOR ~ 26}
Deer
“Perhaps,” suggested Gorm, “it is diseased or injured, and can no longer hunt the swift deer of the north?”
{Marauders of GOR ~ 108}
Frevet
“That is not an urt,” said the proprietor. “They usually come out after dark. There is too much noise and movement fro them during the day.” The small animal skittered backward, with a sound of claws on the boards. Its eyes gleamed in the reflected light of the lamp. “Generally, too, they do not come this high,” said the proprietor. “That is a frevet.” The frevet is a small, quick, mammalian insectivore. “We have several in the house,” he said. “They control the insects, the beetles and lice, and such.”
Boabissia was silent.
“Not every insula furnishes frevets,” said the proprietor. “They are charming as well as useful creatures. You will probably grow fond of them. You will probably wish to keep your door open at night, for coolness, and to give access to them. They cannot gnaw through walls like urts, you know.”
“Is it far now,” I asked.
“No,” said the proprietor. “We are almost there. It is just under the roof.”
“It seems we have come a long way.” I said.
“Not really,” he said. “We are not really so high up. The flights are short.”
We then climbed another flight, to the next landing.
“Oh!” said Boabissia, recoiling.
“You see,” said the proprietor. “You will come to like the frevets.”
{Mercenaries of GOR ~ 276}
Gatch
On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts. Several varieties of tarsk, large and small, also inhabit this zone
{Explorers of GOR ~ 312}
Giani
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man
{Explorers of GOR ~ 312}
Hurt
Cernus of Ar wore a coarse black robe, woven probably from the wool of the bounding, two legged Hurt, a domesticated marsupial raised in large numbers in the environs of several of Gor’s Northern Cities. The Hurt, raised on large, fenced ranches, herded by domesticated sleen and sheered by chained slaves, replaces its wool four times a year.
{Assassin of GOR ~ 39}
Kaiila
The sand kaiila, or desert kaiila, is a kaiila, and handles similarly, but it is not identically the same animal which is indigenous, domestic and wild, in the middle latitudes of Gor’s southern hemisphere; that animal, used as a mount by the Wagon Peoples, is not found in the northern hemisphere of Gor; there is obviously a phylogenetic affinity between the two varieties, or species; I conjecture, though I do not know, that the sand kaiila is a desert-adapted mutation of the subequatorial stock; both animals are lofty, proud, silken creatures, long-necked and smooth-gaited; both are triply lidded, the third lid being a transparent membrane, of great utility in the blasts of the dry storms of the southern plains or the Tahari; both creatures are comparable in size, ranging from some twenty to twenty-two hands at the shoulder; both are swift; both have incredible stamina; under ideal conditions both can range six hundred pasangs in a day; in the dune country, of course, in the heavy, sliding sands, a march of fifty pasangs is considered good; both, too, I might mention, are high-strung, vicious-tempered animals; in pelt the southern kaiila ranges from a rich gold to black; the sand kaiila, on the other hand, are almost all tawny, though I have seen black sand kaiila; differences, some of them striking and important, however, exist between the animals; most notably, perhaps, the sand kaiila suckles its young; the southern kaiila are viviparous, but the young, within hours after birth, hunt by instinct; the mother delivers the young in the vicinity of game; whereas there is game in the Tahari, birds, small mammals, an occasional sand sleen, and some species of Tabuk, it is rare; the suckling of the young in the sand kaiila is a valuable trait in the survival of the animal; kaiila milk, like verr milk, is used by the peoples of the Tahari; it is reddish and has a strong salty taste; it contains much ferrous sulfate; a similar difference between the two animals, or two sorts of kaiila, is that the sand kaiila is omnivorous, whereas the southern kaiila is strictly carnivorous; both have storage tissues; if necessary, both can go several days without water; the southern kaiila also, however, has a storage stomach, and can go several days without meat; the sand kaiila, unfortunately, must feed more frequently; some of the pack animals in a caravan are used in carrying fodder; whatever is needed, and is not available enroute, must be carried; sometimes, with a mounted herdsman, caravan kaiila are released to hunt Tabuk; a more trivial difference between the sand kaiila and the southern kaiila is that the paws of the sand kaiila are much broader, the digits even webbed with leathery fibers, and heavily padded, than those of its southern counterpart.
{Tribesmen of GOR ~ 70}
The mount of the Wagon Peoples, unknown in the northern hemispheres of Gor, is the terrifying but beautiful kaiila. It is a silken, carnivorous, lofty creature, graceful, long-necked, smooth-gaited. It is viviparous and undoubtedly mammalian .A kaiila, which normally stands about twenty to twenty-two hands at the shoulder, can cover as much as six hundred pasangs in a single day’s riding. The head of the kaiila bears two large eyes, one on each side, but these eyes are triply lidded, probably an adaptation to the environment which occasionally is wracked by severe storms of wind and dust; the adaptation, actually a transparent third lid, permits the animal to move as it wishes under conditions that force other prairie animals to back into the wind, or like the sleen, to burrow into the ground
{Nomads of GOR ~ 13}
Kailiauk
The kailiauk in question, incidently, is the kailiauk of the Barrens. It is a gigantic, dangerous beast, often standing from twenty to twenty five hands at the shoulder and weighing as much as four thousand pounds. It is almost never hunted on foot except in deep snow, in which it is almost helpless.
{Savages of GOR ~ 40}
Kailiauk are four-legged, wide-headed, lumbering, stocky ruminants. Their herds are usually found in the savannahs and plains north and south of the rain forests, but some herds frequent the forests as well. These animals are short-trunked and tawny. They commonly have brown and reddish bars on th e haunches. The males, tridentlike, have three horns. These horns bristle from their foreheads. The males are usually about ten hands at the shoulders and the females about eight hands. The males average about four hundred to five hundred Gorean stone in w eight, some sixteen hundred to two thousand pounds, and the females average about three to four hundred Gorean stone in weight, some twelve hundred to sixteen hundred pounds.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 93}
Even past me there thundered a lumbering herd of startled, short-bunked kailiauk, a stocky, awkward ruminant of the plains, tawny, wild, heavy, their haunches marked in red and brown bars, their wide heads bristling with a trident of horns;
{Nomads of GOR ~ 2}
Larl
In spite of my hatred of Priest-Kings I could not help but admire them. None of the men below the mountains, the mortals, had ever succeeded in taming a larl. Even larl cubs when found and raised by men would, on reaching their majority, on some night, in a sudden burst of atavistic fury slay their masters and under the three hurtling moons of Gor lope from the dwellings of men, driven by what instincts I know not, to seek the mountains where they were born. A case is known of a larl who traveled more than twenty-five hundred pasangs to seek a certain shallow crevice in the Voltai in which he had been whelped. He was slain at its mouth. Hunters had followed him. One among them, an old man who had originally been one of the party that had captured the animal, identified the place.
{Priest Kings of GOR ~ 18}
The larl’s head is broad, sometimes more than two feet across, and shaped roughly like a triangle, giving its skull something of the cast of a viper’s save that of course it is furred and the pupils of the eyes like the cat’s and unlike the viper’s, can range from knifelike slits in the broad daylight to dark, inquisitive moons in the night. The pelt of the larl is normally a tawny red or a sable black. The black larl, which is predominantly nocturnal, is maned, both male and female. The red larl, which hunts whenever hungry, regardless of the hour, and is the more common variety, possesses no mane. Females of both varieties tend generally to be slightly smaller than the males, but are quite as aggressive and sometimes even more dangerous, particularly in the late fall and winter of the year when they are likely to be hunting for their cubs. I had once killed a male red larl in the Voltai Range within pasangs of the city of Ar.
{Priest-Kings of GOR ~ 18}
I was struck with wonder, though I was careful to keep beyond the range of their chains, for I had never seen white larls before.
They were gigantic beasts, superb specimens, perhaps eight feet at the shoulder.
Their upper canine fangs, like daggers mounted in their jaws, must have been at least a foot in length and extended well below their jaws in the manner of ancient saber-toothed tigers. The four nostril slits of each animal were flared and their great chests lifted and fell with the intensity of their excitement. Their tails, long and tufted at the end, lashed back and forth.
{Priest-Kings of GOR ~ 22}
Some four days into the mountains I heard for the first time in my journey the sound of a thing other than the wind, the sighing of snow and the groaning of ice; it was the sound of a living thing; the sound of a mountain larl. The larl is a predator, clawed and fanged, quite large, often standing seven feet at the shoulder. I think it would be fair to say that it is substantially feline; at any rate its grace and sinuous power remind me of the smaller but similarly fearsome jungle cats of my old world. The resemblance is, I suppose, due to the mechanics of convergent evolution, both animals having been shaped by the exigencies of the chase, the stealth of the approach and the sudden charge, and by the requirement of the swift and devastating kill. If there is an optimum configuration for a land predator, I suppose on my old world the palm must go to the Bengal tiger; but on Gor the prize belongs indisputably to the mountain larl; and I cannot but believe that the structural similarities between the two animals, though of different worlds, are more than a matter of accident
{Priest Kings of GOR ~ 18}
Lart
The hunter pulled a pelt from the bundle of furs he carried. It was snowy white, and thick, the winter fur of a two-stomached snow lart. It almost seemed to glisten. The slaver’s man appreciated its value. Such a pelt could sell in Ar for half a silver tarsk. He took the pelt and examined it. The snow lart hunts in the sun. The food in the second stomach can be held almost indefinitely. It is filled in the fall and must last the lart through the winter night, which lasts months, the number of months depending on the latitude of his individual territory. It is not a large animal. It is about ten inches high and weighs between eight and twelve pounds. It is mammalian, and has four legs. It eats bird’s eggs and preys on the leem, a small arctic rodent, some five to ten ounces in weight, which hibernates during the winter.
{Beasts of GOR ~ 74}
Leem
The hunter drew forth from the bundle of furs two tiny pelts of the leem. These were brown, the summer coats of the animals.
{Beasts of GOR ~ 74}
Monkey {Guernon, Jit}
Gently we lowered the canoe. While the others held it I, with rocks, braced it that it might not slip backwards down the grade. Trees surrounded us. Overhead bright jungle birds flew. We could hear the chattering of guernon monkeys about.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 307}
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
Panthers
On the jungle floor, as well, are found jungle larls and jungle panthers, of diverse kinds, and many smaller catlike predators. These, on the whole, however, avoid men. They are less dangerous in the rain forest, generally, than in the northern latitudes. I do not know why this should be the case. Perhaps it is because in the rain forest food is usually plentiful for them, and, thus, there is little temptation for them to transgress the boundaries of their customary prey categories. They will, however, upon occasion, particularly if provoked or challenged, attack with dispatch.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
He had worn at his loins the pelts of the yellow panther.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 236}
Porcupine
Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
Qualae
I saw what I first thought was a shadow, but as the tarn passed, it scattered into a scampering flock of tiny creatures, probably the small, three-toed mammals called qualae, dun-colored and with a stiff, brushy mane of black hair.
{Tarnsman of GOR ~ 140}
Slee
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
Sloth
Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
Squirrel
Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
Tabuk
The tabuk is the most common Gorean antelope, a small graceful animal, one-horned and yellow, that haunts the Ka-la-na thickets of the planet and occasionally ventures daintily into its meadows in search of berries and salt. It is also one of the favorite kills of a tarn.
{Outlaw of GOR ~ 126}
They were northern tabuk, massive, tawny and swift, many of them ten hands at the shoulder, a quite different animal from the small, yellow-pelted antelope-like quadruped of the south. On the other hand, they too were distinguished by the single horn of the tabuk. On these animals, however, that object, in swirling ivory, was often, at its base, some two and one half inches in diameter, and better than a yard in length. A charging tabuk, because of the swiftness of its reflexes, is quite a dangerous animal
{Beasts of GOR ~ 152}
Some varieties of prairie tabuk, interestingly, when sensing danger, tend to lie down. This is counterinstinctual for most varieties of tabuk, which, when sensing danger, tend to freeze, in a tense, standing position and then, if alarmed further, tend to scurry away, depending on their agility and speed to escape the predators. The standing position, of course, as is the case with bipedalian creatures, tends to increase their scanning range. The response disposition of lying down, apparently selected for in some varieties of tabuk, tends to be usefull in an environment in which high grass is plentifull and one of the most common predators depends primarily on vision to detect and locate its prey. This predator, as would be expected, normally attacks from a direction in which its shadow does not precede it. Any tabuk, of course, if it is sufficiently alarmed, will bound away. It can attain short-term speeds of from eighty to ninety pasangs an Ahn. Its evasive leaps, in the Gorean gravity, can cover from thrity to forty feet in length, and attain heights of ten to fifteen feet.
{Blood Brothers of GOR ~ 316}
Tarsier
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
Tarsk
In the forests there were sleen and panthers, and fierce tarsks.
{Hunters of GOR ~ 67}
I heard the squealing of a domestic tarsk running nearby, its feet scuttling in the woven rence of the island, as on a mat. A child was crying out, chasing it.
{Raiders of GOR ~ 16}
Still later that afternoon some groups of small, fat, grunting, bristly, brindled, shaggy-maned, hoofed, flat-snouted, rooting animals had been herded in, also with pointed sticks, and they, too, had been guided into identical cages. We had looked out of our cage, our fingers hooked in the mesh, to other cages, some of them with girls in them, some with the fat, flat-snouted, grunting, short-legged, brindled quadrupeds.
“Those are tarsks,” said one of the Gorean girls.
{Dancer of GOR ~ 108}
Urt
Behind the man, in the stern, lay the bloody, white-furred bodies of two canal urts. One would have weighed about sixty pounds, and the other, I speculate, about seventy-five or eighty pounds.
{Savages of GOR ~ 67}
It was a giant urt, fat, sleek and white; it bared it three rows of needlelike white teeth at me and squealed in anger; two horns, tusks like flat crescents curved from its jaw; another two horns, similar to the first, modifications of the bony tissue forming the upper ridge of the eye socket, protruded over those gleaming eyes that seemed to feast themselves upon me, as it waiting the permission of the keeper to hurl itself on its feeding trough. Its fat body trembled with anticipation.
{Outlaw of GOR ~ 86}
Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on
{Explorers of GOR ~ 311}
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
We may perhaps, somewhat loosely, speak of this first zone as the “floor,” or, better, “ground zone,” of the rain forest. In the level of the emergents there live primarily birds, in particular parrots, long-billed fleers, and needle-tailed lits. Monkeys and tree urts, and snakes and insects, however, can also be found in this highest level
{Explorers of GOR ~ 31}
Over her shoulder she had two small, furred animals, hideous forest urts, about the size of cats, and in her left hand she carried four small, green-and-yellow-plumaged birds.
{Captive of GOR ~ 237}
Vart
Perhaps most I dreaded those nights filled with the shrieks of the vart pack, a blind, batlike swarm of flying rodents, each the size of a small dog. They could strip a carcass in a matter of minutes
{Outlaw of GOR ~ 26}
I could, however, recognize a row of brown varts, clinging upside down like large matted fists of teeth and fur and leather on the heavy, bare, scarred branch in their case
{Priest-Kings of GOR ~ 191}
In the lower branches of the “ground zone“ may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man... On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 313}
Verr
The verr was a mountain goat indigenous to the Voltai. It was a wild, agile, ill-tempered beast, long-haired and spiral-horned. Among the Voltai crags it would be worth one’s life to come within twenty yards of one.
{Priest-Kings of GOR ~ 63}
Zeder
There is, however, a sleenlike animal, though much smaller, about two feet in length and some eight to ten pounds in weight, the zeder, which frequents the Ua and her tributaries. It knifes through the water by day and, at night, returns to its nest, built from sticks and mud in the branches of a tree overlooking the water.
{Explorers of GOR ~ 312}