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| Animals |
| Anteater: There are six varieties of anteaters in the rainforests near Schendi. One type is the great spined anteater. It is about twenty feet long and has heavy clawed forefeet. These claws are generally used to break into termite nests, its primary prey. They are also strong enough to eviscerate a larl. The anteater's four-foot long tongue is coated with an adhesive saliva that it uses to collect them. It also commonly makes a whistling sound. Bosk: There are fifteen varieties of bosk, a cattle like animal. These varieties include the brown bosk, red bosk, and milk bosk. They are commonly the long-haired wild ox of the plains. They have a thick, humped neck, a wide head, and tiny red eyes. They also have the temper of a sleen. With their two, long, wicked horns they can be quite deadly. The horns reach out and suddenly curve forward and may even reach the length of two spears. They are very important animals to the Wagon Peoples and also many others on Gor. Bosk meat and milk is available over much of Gor. Deer: A swift type of deer lives in the north areas. Frevet: These are small, quick, and friendly mammalian insectivores. They sometimes live in insulae in the cities and eat pests. As they cannot eat through walls, then they do not harm the insulae. Gatch, armored: This is a marsupial that lives in the rainforests near Schendi. Giani: These are solitary, prowling, tiny cat-sized panthers. They live in the rainforests near Schendi and are not dangerous to man. Goat Hurt: This is a two-legged, domesticated marsupial that bounds like a kangaroo. It is raised on ranches in several northern cities, herded by sleen and sheared for their white wool. Hurts replace their wool four times a year. The finest wool is sheared in the spring from the bellies of hurts and verr. Kaiila: There are two varieties of kaiila, the southern kaiila and the desert or sand kaiila. The earlier books stated that kaiila did not exist in the northern hemisphere but this was later changed as the Red Savage in the Barrens have kaiila. The two varieties are very similar. The southern kaiila are used by the Wagon Peoples as mounts. It is a silken, lofty, and graceful animal. It is long necked, smooth gaited, and carnivorous. It is mammalian but doesn't suckle its young. The young are born vicious and can hunt as soon as they struggle to their feet. The mother's instinct is to deliver the young near game. Once a kaiila eats its fill, it won't eat for several days. They are extremely agile and can easily outmaneuver a high tharlarion. They require less food than a tarn. They normally stands about twenty to twenty-two hands at the shoulder. They can cover as much as six hundred pasangs a day. Its head bears two large eyes, one on each side, and the eyes are triply lidded so it can travel in adverse weather like storms. It is most dangerous at these times and often hunts then. Some are colored black. They also have long, triangular tongues, long ears and four rows of fangs. They are trained to avoid the thrown spear. Until it is proficient in this skill, it is not allowed to breed. The sand or desert kailla is used as a mount in the Tahari. They are almost all tawny colored though there are some black ones. This variety does suckle their young. Kailla milk is reddish and has a strong salty taste. This is an omnivorous creature and must feed more frequently than the southern kailla. Its paws are much broader, the digits being webbed with leathery fibers and heavily padded. Its hair is never sheared though it is gathered when it sheds. The most prized hair is found on its belly. Such hairs are commonly used to make cloth. The long outer hairs are coarser and used for ropes and tent cloth. Kailiauk: This is a short-trunked, stocky, awkward ruminant of the plains. There are several varieties including the Yellow Kailiauk. The yellow variety are tawny and their haunches are marked in red and brown bars. The males have a trident of horns and usually stand about ten hands at the shoulder. Females only stand about eight. The males weigh about sixteen hundred to two thousand pounds and the females only weigh twelve hundred to sixteen hundred pounds. They are located in the savannahs and plains north and south of the rain forests. Some herds even frequent the forests. The kailiauk of the Barrens is the larger type, standing twenty to twenty-five hands, and weighing up to four thousand pounds. Their numbers in the Barrens are enormous and most have never seen a man or sleen. They have nearly no natural enemies. They are migratory creatures and drift with the seasons, bending northward in the summer and southward in the winter. They generally follow a gigantic oval pattern that crosses the lands of many tribes so a tribe need not leave its own territory to hunt them. The known kailiauk in the Barrens travel in herds that have often been named. Some famous herds include the Boswell, Bento and Hogarthe herds. The four or five best known herds number between two and three million animals. The tremors from any of those herds can be felt fifty pasangs away. There are several smaller herds numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and there are even smaller herds of hundreds to thousands. They are rarely hunted on foot except in snow. They are commonly hunted by kaiilaback. They have four stomachs and eight-valved heart. A red savage can kill one with a single arrow by striking into the intestinal cavity behind the last rib causing large internal bleeding or by a shot behind the left shoulder blade into the heart. |
| Larl: There are several varieties of this tawny leopard-like beast that is indigenous to the Voltai and other ranges. It is six to eight foot tall at the shoulder. Its head is broad, sometimes more than two feet across, and shaped roughly like a triangle. This makes its head viper-like. Their heads are in constant motion. It has an unobtrusive bony ridge which runs from its four nasal slits to the start of its backbone. The ridge can be penetrated by a spear but an imperfect cast would glance off the bone. It has an eight-valved heart in the center of its breast. They sometimes visit the civilized plains. When it hunts alone, it is silent until it roars preceding its charge. When hunting with others, they emit hunting cries, cries to drive their prey toward a certain direction, into the path of quiet larls of the same pride. A larl prefers to ruin a hunt, even with a number of other quarry, if it means that one might escape. No one had ever tamed a larl. Even when raised from a cub, a larl will go wild at sometime and run away. They are hunted with spears. They usually only attack men when provoked or no other prey is available. Hunters of larls use the Gorean spear. They go in single file. When they see a larl, the first man in the line casts his spear and then drops to the ground, covering himself with his shield. If the larl is not dead, the next man in line will cast his spear. The last spear must stand his ground if the larl is not dead and face it with his sword alone so the others can escape. The First Spear is usually the best spearsman and Last the worst. Its pelt is normally a tawny red or sable black. The black larl is predominately nocturnal and both male and female are maned. The red larl, the more common type, hunts whenever hungry and has no mane. Females of both types are smaller but are quite as aggressive and sometimes even more dangerous particularly when they are hunting for their cubs during the late fall and winter. The white larls have upper canine fangs that are a foot in length and extend down like a saber tooth tiger. There tails are long and tufted at the end. There are also larls in the jungles near Schendi. The heart of the mountain larl allegedly brings great luck, even more luck than that of the sleen. There is even a larl hunter dance that is performed by men. They dance in a file, dancing the stalking of the beast including the confrontation and the kill. |
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