VARIOUS ANIMALS of GOR

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 p293]

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 p4]
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 p26]

Deer
“Perhaps,” suggested Gorm, “it is diseased or injured, and can no longer hunt the swift deer of the north?”  [Marauders of Gor p108]

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 p276]

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 p312]

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 p312]

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 p39]

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 p70]
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 p13]

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 p40]
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 p93]
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 p2]

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 p18]
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 p18]
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  p22]
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  p18]

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 p74]

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 p74]

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 p307]
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 p311]

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 p313]
He had worn at his loins the pelts of the yellow panther. [Explorers of Gor p236]

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 p311]

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 p140]
 
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 p313]

Sleen
I saw a pair of prairie sleen, smaller than the forest sleen but quite as unpredictable and vicious, each about seven feet in length, furred, six-legged, mammalian, moving in their undulating gait with their viper's heads moving from side to side, continually testing the wind.
[Nomads of Gor p2]
If I were found on the plains near the camps or the bosk herds I knew I would be scented out and slain by the domesticated, nocturnal herd sleen, used as shepherds and sentinels by the Wagon Peoples, released from their cages with the falling of darkness.
These animals, trained prairie sleen, move rapidly and silently, attacking upon no other provocation than trespass on what they have decided is their territory. They respond only to the voice of their master, and when he is killed or dies, his animals are slain and eaten.
[Nomads of Gor p9]
As we passed among the wagons I leaped back as a tawny prairie sleen hurled itself against the bars of a sleen cage, reaching out for me with its six-clawed paw. There were four other prairie sleen in the cage, a small cage, and they were curling and moving about one another, restlessly, like angry snakes. They would be released with the fan of darkness to run the periphery of the herds, acting, as I have mentioned, as shepherds and sentinels. They are also used if a slave escapes, for the sleen is an efficient, tireless, savage, almost infallible hunter, capable of pursuing a scent, days old, for hundreds of pasangs until, perhaps a month later, it finds its victim and tears it to pieces. [Nomads of Gor p28]
With misgivings I observed the two, six-legged, sinuous, tawny hunting sleen on their chain leashes. Kamchak was holding Elizabeth's bedding a rep-cloth blanket for them to smell. Their ears began to lay back against the sides of their triangular heads; their long, serpentine bodies trembled; I saw claws emerge from their paws, retract, emerge again and then retract; they lifted their heads, sweeping them from side to side, and then thrust their snouts to the ground and began to whimper excitedly. [Nomads of Gor p166]
The vicious, six-legged sleen, large-eyed, sinuous, mammalian but resembling a furred, serpentine lizard, was a reliable, indefatigable hunter. He could follow a scent days old with ease, and then, perhaps hundreds of pasangs, and days, later, be unleashed for the sport of the hunters, to tear his victim to pieces.
I expected there was not likely to be escape for slaves to the north.
Hunting sleen are trained to scent out and destroy escaped slaves. Their senses are unusually keen. [Raiders of Gor p105]
The sleen has six legs.It is long, sinuous; it resembles a lizard, save that it is furred and mammalian. In its attack frenzy it is one of the most dangerous animals on Gor. [Captive of Gor p155]
The sleen lifted its long, triangular jaws and hissed. I saw the moonlight on the three rows of white, needlelike teeth. [Captive of Gor p180]
The sleen is a burrowing animal. It seldom climbs. [Hunters of Gor p114]
The sleen is Gor’s most perfect hunter. [Hunters of Gor p156]
Her cloak, of black fur, from the black sea sleen, glossy and deep, swirled to her ankles. [Marauders of Gor p35]
Near him, beside the high seat, sat his woman, Bera, her hair worn high on her head, in a kirtle of yellow wool with scarlet cape of the fur of the red sea sleen, and, about her neck, necklaces of gold. [Marauders of Gor p194]
Near the center of the camp, but somewhat to the south and east of the center, like the verr, the tarsk, the bosk, was another herd of Kurii animals; it, too, resided in its pen, a wide pen, more than a quarter of a pasang in diameter, formed of poles and crossbars, lashed together; this pen, however, was patrolled by prowling, domesticated sleen; the animals huddled together, within the pen, hundreds of them, terrified of the sleen; these were herd sleen, trained to group and control animals. [Marauders of Gor p242]]
Sometimes the foraging squads of the Kurii had been accompanied by trained sleen, often four of them Twice, in my reconnoitering, I had had to kill such beasts. The sleen have various uses; some are merely used as watch animals or guard animals; others are used as points in the advance of squads, some trained to attack putative enemies, others to return to the squad, thus alerting it to the presence of a possible enemy; others are even more highly trained, and are used to hunt humans; of the human-hunting sleen, some are trained merely to kill, and others to hurry the quarry to a Kurii holding area; one type of sleen is trained to destroy males and herd females, distinguishing between the sexes by scent. A sleen may bring a girl in, stumbling and weeping, from pasangs away, driving her, as Kurii take little notice, through their very camp, until she is entered into a herd. Four days ago I had seen a girl drive, in which several sleen, fanning out over a large area of territory, had scented out scattered, hiding slave girls and, from various points, driven them into a blind canyon, where a waiting Kur had swung shut a wooden gate on them, fastening them inside. Sleen are also used to patrol the large return marches of groups of foraging expeditions, those marches between the temporary holding areas and the main camp. The order of such a march is typically as follows: captured humans, in single file, form its center. These humans are usually thralls and bond-maids, but not always. The spoils are carried by the captured male humans, unless there are too many, and then the residue is divided among the bond-maids. Kurii burden the males heavily; they can think of little more than the weight they carry, and the next step; furthermore, their wrists are usually tied to the straps of their improvised backpacks. Kurii, unlike Goreans, do not subject bond-maids to heavy labor; it toughens their meat; the bond-maids are separated from the males, that they be deprived of leadership; furthermore, the technique of keeping prisoners in single file, separating them by some feet, and preventing speech between them, tends to make conjoint action between them unlikely. Prowling the long single-file of prisoners, male and female, in alternate groups, bond-maids thus used to separate files of men from one another, will be sleen. Should any individual, either male or female, depart by so much as a yard from the line of march, or attempt to close the gap between himself and a fellow prisoner, the sleen prevent this. Once I saw a girl stumble and two sleen, immediately, snarling and hissing, sprang toward her. She leaped, weeping, to her feet and darted to her precise place in the line, keeping it perfectly, casting terrified glances at the vicious predators. The line of prisoners and sleen is, on both sides, flanked by the Kurii foragers. There are thus five lines, the center line of prisoners and spoils, its flanking lines of sleen, and, on either side, the flanking lines of the Kur foragers. Human prisoners of Kurii, incidentally, are usually stripped; Kurii see no reason to give animals clothing. [Marauders of Gor p242]
A girl fled past us, a sleen, brown and black, padding at her heels. [Marauders of Gor p260]
My hand went before my mouth. I saw it, in the darkness, emerging from the brush. I thought, at first, because of its sinuous movement, that it was a great snake, but it was not. I thought, seeing it, holding itself closely to the ground, but yet free of the ground, that it might be a long-bodied lizard. Then, as moonlight fell through the tree branches in a pattern across its snout and neck, I saw not scales, but rippled fur, long and thick. Its eyes caught the light and flashed like burning copper. It snarled. I gasped. It had six legs. It was perhaps twenty feet in length, perhaps eleven hundred pounds in weight. It approached sinuously, hissing. The man spoke soothingly to the beast. His spear faced it. It circled us, and the man turned, always, spear ready, facing it. I kept behind the man. Then the beast disappeared in the shadows. I collapsed at the man’s feet, shuddering. He did not admonish me. I was not punished. He had not acted as though he particularly feared the beast. It was not simply that he was brave, and had hunted such animals, but, as I later understood, that he was familiar with the habits of such beasts. The beast had not been hunting us. Commonly such a beast scouts prey, surreptitiously, and then, unless suspecting a trap, as with a tethered victim, perhaps a staked-out girl, used as a lure, makes its swift, unexpected strike, its kill charge. The beast had been on another scent, probably that of tabuk, a small, single-horned antelopelike creature, its common game, and, on its trail, we had constituted only a distraction. Such a beast is a tireless and single-minded hunter. Domesticated, it is often used as a tracker. Once it sets out upon a scent it commonly pursues it unwaveringly. Evolution, in its case, has, among other things, apparently selected for tenacity. This is a useful feature, of course, in tracking. Fortunately ours had not been the first scent that night which the beast, upon emerging from its lair, had taken. Had it been there would have been grim dealings. It is called a sleen. [Slave Girl of Gor p39]
The cage was in a sleen training pit, surrounded by a low, wooden wall and floored with sand. Within the walls were several individuals, my sisters in bondage, those still the property of Clitus Vitellius, one of whom was encaged like myself, Chanda, who was sitting in her cage, wrapping a cloth about her bleeding leg; Thurnus; another of his girls, Sandal Thong; some men assisting Thurnus; and Clitus Vitellius, and some of his men. Within the ring, too, were some eight sleen, tied on short tethers to stakes, at the sides; and a rack of meats, and poles, and ropes and whips, used in the training of the animals. [Slave Girl of Gor p183
There are many varieties of sleen, and most varieties can be, to one extent or another, domesticated. The two most common sorts of trained sleen are the smaller, tawny prairie sleen, and the large, brown or black forest sleen, sometimes attaining a length of twenty feet. In the north, I am told the snow sleen has been domesticated. The sleen is a dangerous and fairly common animal on Gor, which has adapted itself to a variety of environments. There is even an aquatic variety, called the sea sleen, which is one of the swiftest and most dreaded beasts in the sea. Sea sleen are found commonly in northern waters. They are common off the coast of Torvaldsland, and further north.
In the wild, the sleen is a burrowing, predominantly nocturnal animal. It is carnivorous. It is a tenacious hunter, and an indefatigable tracker. It will attack almost anything, but its preferred prey is tabuk. It mates once a year in the Gorean spring, and there are usually four young in each litter. The gestation period is some six months. The young are commonly white furred at birth, the fur darkening by the following spring. Snow sleen, however, remain white-pelted throughout their life.
Most domestic sleen are bred. It is difficult to take and tame a wild sleen. Sometimes young sleen, following the killing of the mother, are dug out of a burrow and raised. If they can be taken within the first two months of their life, which seems to be a critical period, before they have tasted blood and meat in the wild, and made their own kills, there is apparently a reasonably good chance that they can be domesticated; otherwise, generally not. Although grown, wild sleen have been caught and domesticated, this is rare. Even a sleen which has been taken young may revert. These reversions can be extremely dangerous. They usually take place, as would be expected, in the spring, during the mating season. Male sleen, in particular, can be extremely restless and vicious during this period. The mating of sleen is interesting. The female, if never before mated, flees and fights the male. But he is larger and stronger. At last he takes her by the throat and throws her upon her back, interestingly, belly to belly, beneath him. His fangs are upon her throat. She is at his mercy. She becomes docile and permits her penetration. Shortly, thereafter, their heat growing, they begin, locked together by legs and teeth, to roll and squeal in their mating frenzy. It is a very fierce and marvelous spectacle. It is not unusual for slave girls, seeing this, to kneel at their master’s feet and beg their caress. After the female sleen has been taken thusly once, no longer need she be forced. She follows the male, often rubbing against him, and hunts with him. Sometimes she must be driven away with snarls and bites. Sleen, interestingly, often pair for life. Their rutting, however, is usually confined to the spring. Sometimes slave girls are called she-sleen, but I do not think this expression is completely apt. Sexual congress in the human is not confined to a particular season. We are not she-sleen. The heat of the she-sleen occurs in the spring. We are slave girls. Our masters keep us in heat constantly. [Slave Girl of Gor p185]
“Stop!” cried a voice. There were the shrill squeals of sleen. Sandal Thong stood at the edge of the circle, in each fist the leash, a short leash, of a sleen. The animals strained against the leashed collars, trying to creep forward, their eyes blazing, saliva loose and dripping from their jaws, the wet fangs shining in the firelight. “On the first man who moves,” cried Sandal Thong, “I shall set a sleen!”
The young men drew back. [Slave Girl of Gor p233]
Suddenly I lifted my head a bit. I smelled the odor of sleen.
The door to my chamber which, in my house, I did not keep locked, moved slightly.
Instantly I moved from the couch, startling the chained girl. I stood, bent, tensed, beside the couch. I did not move.
The snout of the beast thrust first softly through the opening, moving the door back.
I heard the girl gasp.
“Make no sound,” I said. I did not move.
I crouched down. The animal had been released. Its bead was now fully through the door. Its head was wide and triangular. Suddenly the eyes took the light of the lamp and blazed. And then, the head moving, its eyes no longer reflected the light. It no longer faced the light. Rather it was watching me.
The animal was some twenty feet in length, some eleven hundred pounds in weight, a forest sleen, domesticated. It was double fanged and six-legged. It crouched down and inched forward. Its belly fur must have touched the tiles. It wore a leather sleen collar but there was no leash on the leash loop.
I had thought it was trained to hunt tabuk with archers, but it clearly was not tabuk it hunted now.
I knew the look of a hunting sleen. It was a hunter of men.
It swiftly inched forward, then stopped.
When in the afternoon I had seen it in its cage, with its trainer, Bertram of Lydius, it had not reacted to me other than as to the other observers. It had not then, I knew, been put upon my scent.
It crept forward another foot.
I did not think it had been loose from its cage long, for it would take such a beast, a sleen, Gor’s finest tracker, only moments to make its way silently through the halls to this chamber.      [Beasts of Gor p12]
Then they must hunt elsewhere. Perhaps some can live by fishing until the fall, and the return of the black sea sleen.
The red hunters lived as nomads, dependent on the migrations of various types of animals, in particular the northern tabuk and four varieties of sea sleen. [Beasts of Gor p36]
“There is here an iceberg,” said Samos, pointing to the map, “which is not following the parsit current.” Samos had said, literally, of course, ‘ice mountain’. The parsit current is the main eastward current above the polar basin. It is called the parsit current for it is followed by several varieties of migrating parsit, a small, narrow, usually striped fish. Sleen, interestingly, come northward with the parsit, their own migrations synchronized with those of the parsit, which forms for them their principal prey. The four main types of sea sleen found in the polar seas are the black sleen, the brown sleen, the tusked sleen and the flat-nosed sleen. There is a time of year for the arrival of each, depending on the waves of the parsit migrations. Not all members of a species of sleen migrate. Also, some winter under the ice, remaining generally dormant, rising every quarter of an Ahn or so to breathe. This is done at breaks in the ice or at gnawed breathing holes. [Beasts of Gor p38]
The sleen can follow a track better than a larl or a Kur. It is tireless and tenacious, and merciless. [Beasts of Gor p12]
Conspicuously absent in the rain forests of the Ua were sleen. This is just as well for the sleen, commonly, hunts on the first scent it takes upon emerging from its burrow after dark. Moreover it hunts single-mindedly and tenaciously. It can be extremely dangerous to men, even more so, I think, than the Voltai, or northern, larl. I think the sleen, which is widespread on Gor, is not found, or not frequently found, in the jungles because of the enormous rains, and the incredible dampness and humidity. Perhaps the sleen, a burrowing, furred animal, finds itself uncomfortable in such a habitat There is, however, a sleen-like 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 p312]
Sleen are trained variously. The five most common trainings are those of the war sleen, which may also be utilized as a bodyguard; the watch sleen, to guard given precincts; the herding sleen, which will kill only if the quarry refused to be herded rapidly and which will kill only if the quarry refused to be herded rapidly and efficiently to a given destination, usually a pen or slave cage; the trailing sleen, which is used, in leash, to follow a scent; and the hunter, which is trained to hunt and kill. It is next to impossible to use a hunter as a trailer, because, when the quarry is near, and the killing fever is on it, it will even turn and attack its leash holder, to free itself for the strike on the quarry. A trailer is usually a smaller beast, and one more easily managed, but it is, when all is said and done, a sleen, and trailers not unoften, at the hunt’s end, their instincts preponderating, break loose for the kill. When they begin to become unmanageable they must be killed. The hunters are used generally, of course, in the pursuit of fugitives, free or slave. Unleashed, they are not retarded in their hunt by the lagging of their keepers. I was terrified of sleen. I had seen how they could tear apart great pieces of meat. Most houses in which female slaves may be found, it might be mentioned, as it may be of interest to some, would not have sleen. The sleen is, at least in civilized areas, a rare, expensive and dangerous beast. They do abound in some areas in the wild, as, for example, in the surrounding mountains. The sleen often burrows, and it is predominantly nocturnal. There are also several varieties of the animal apparently, adapted to diverse environments. The most common sleen in domestication, as I understand it, is the forest sleen. It is also the largest, animal for animal. There are also, as I understand it, prairie sleen, mountain sleen and snow sleen. There is a short-haired variety found in some tropical areas, the jungle sleen. And one variety, it seems, is adapted for an aquatic environment, the sea sleen.” [Witness of Gor p575]

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 p311]

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 p311]

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 p126]
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 p152]
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 p316]

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 p313]

Tarsk
In the forests there were sleen and panthers, and fierce tarsks. [Hunters of Gor p67]
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 p16]
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 p108]
 
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 p 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 p86]
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 p311]
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 p313]
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 p313]
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 p31]
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 p237]

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 p26]
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 p191]
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 p313]

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 p63]

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 p312]