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"Scarcely had she broken into the clearing, splashing through the shallow greenish waters near us, than the fearsome head of a wild tharlarion poked through the reeds, its round, shining eyes gleaming with excitement, its vast arc of a mouth swung open. Almost too rapid to be visible, a long brown lash of a tongue darted from its mouth and curled around the slender, helpless figure of the girl. She screamed hysterically, trying to force the adhesive band from her waist. It began to withdraw towards the mouth of the beast. In an instant I had splashed into the marsh at the foot of the tree and raced towards the tharlarion, my sword raised. I rushed between its mouth and the girl, and with a swift downward slash of my blade severed that foul brown tongue. A shattering squeal of pain rent the heavy air of the swamp forest, and the tharlarion actually reared on its hind legs and spun about in pain, sucking the brown stump of its tongue back into its mouth with an ugly popping noise. Then it splashed on its back in the water, rolled quickly on to its legs, and began to move its head in rapid scanning motions. Almost immediately its eyes fixed on me; its mouth, now filled with a colourless scum, opened, revealing its teeth ridges. It charged, its great webbed feet striking the marsh water like explosions. In an instant the mouth had snapped for me, and I had left the mark of my blade deep in the teeth ridges of its lower jaw. It snapped again, and I knelt, the jaws passing over me as I thrust upward with the sword, piercing the neck. It backed away to about four or five paces, slowly, unsteadily. The tongue, or rather its stump, flitted in and out of its mouth two or three times, as if the creature could not understand that it was no longer at its disposal." Book 1, Tarnsman of Gor, pages 83 - 84
"The ringing of the tharlarion's shod claws on the road grew louder. Book 1, Tarnsman of Gor, page 115
"Behind them, stretching into the distance, came a long line of broad thalarions, or the four-footed draft monsters of Gor. These beasts, yoked in braces, were drawing mighty wagons, filled with merchandise protected under the lashings of its red rain-canvas." Book 1, Tarnsman of Gor, page 118
"The high thalarions, unlike their draft brethren, the slow-moving, four-footed broad thalarions, were carnivorous." Book 1, Tarnsman of Gor, page 125
"To my right, some two or three feet under the water, I saw the sudden, rolling yellowish flash of the slatted belly of a water thalarion, turning as it made its swift strike..." Book 6, Raiders of Gor, page 1
"A huge thalarion, seeing the image on the water, half rose from the marsh, jaws clashing, and then dropped back into the water." Book 6, Raiders of Gor, page 92
"A broad, low-sided barge began to back toward the pier. It had two large steering oars, manned by bargemen. It was draw by two gigantic, web-footed river thalarion....They were scaled, vast and long-necked. Yet in the water it seemed, for all their bulk, they moved delicately. One dipped its head under the surface and, moments later, the head emerged, dripping, the eyes blinking, a silverish fish struggling in the small, triangular-toothed jaws. It engorged the fish, and turned its small head, eyes now unblinking, to regard us. They were harnessed to the broad barge. They were controlled by a bargeman, with a long whipping stick, who as ensconced in a leather basket, part of the harness, slung between the two animals. He would also shout at them, commands, interspersed with florid Gorean profanity, and, slowly, not undelicately, they responded to his cries. The barge grated against the pier." Book 7, Captive of Gor, pages 79 - 80 ~¤~
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