INSECTS of GOR

Ant
Soon, as we approached more closely, quietly, the sound became much louder. It was now clearly distinguishable as a quite audible rustling or stirring. But there was no wind.
“The marchers,” said the leader of the small men, pointing.
The hair on the back of my neck rose.
I saw now that the sound was the sound of millions upon millions of tiny feet, treading upon the leaves and fallen debris of the jungle floor. Too, there may have been, mixed in that sound, the almost infinitesimal sound, audible only in its cumulative effect, of the rubbings and clickings of the joints of tiny limbs and the shiftings and adjustments of tiny, black, shiny exoskeletons, those stiff casings of the segments of their tiny bodies.
“Do not go too close,” said the leader of the small men.
The column of the marchers was something like a yard wide. I did not know how long it might be. It extended ahead through the jungle and behind through the jungle farther than I could see in either direction. Such columns can be pasangs in length. It is difficult to conjecture the numbers that constitute such a march. Conservatively some dozens of millions might be involved. The column widens only when food is found; then it may spread as widely as five hundred feet in width. Do not try to wade through such a flood. The torrent of hurrying feeders leaves little but bones in its path.
“Let us go toward the head of the column,” said the little man.
We trekked through the jungle for several hours, keeping parallel to the long column. Once we crossed a small stream. The marchers, forming living bridges of their own bodies, clinging and scrambling on one another, crossed it also. They, rustling and black, moved over fallen trees and about rocks and palms. They seemed tireless and relentless. Flankers marshalled the column. Through the green rain forest the column moved, like a governed, endless, whispering black snake.
“Do they march at night?” I asked.
“Often,” said the small man. “One must be careful where one sleeps.”
We had then advanced beyond the head of the column by some four hundred yards.
“It is going to rain,” I said. “Will that stop them?”
“For a time,” he said. “They will scatter and seek shelter, beneath leaves and twigs, under the debris of the forest, and then, summoned by their leaders, they will reform and again take up the march.”
Scarcely had he spoken but the skies opened up and, from the midst of the black, swirling clouds, while lightning cracked and shattered across the sky and branches lashed back and forth wildly in the wind, the driven, darkly silver sheets of a tropical rain storm descended upon us.
“Do they hunt?” I shouted to the small man.
“Not really,” he said. “They forage.”
“Look,” had said the leader of the small men this morning, “scouts.”
He had thrown to the forest floor a portion of the slain tarsk. I watched the black, segmented bodies of some fifteen or twenty ants, some two hundred yards in advance of the column, approach the meat. Their antennae were lifted. They had seemed tense, excited. They were some two inches in length. Their bite, and that of their fellows, is vicious and extremely painful, but it is not poisonous. There is no quick death for those who fail to escape the column. Several of these ants then formed a circle, their heads together, their antennae, quivering, touching one another. Then, almost instantly, the circle broke and they rushed back to the column.
“Watch,” had said the small man.
To my horror I had then seen the column turn toward the piece of tarsk flesh.
There was now a horrified shouting in the camp. I saw torches being thrust to the ground. Men were irrationally thrusting at the ground with spears. Others tore palm leaves from the roofs of huts, striking about them. I hoped there were no tethered animals in the camp. Between two huts I saw a man rolling on the ground in frenzied pain.
I felt a sharp painful bite at my foot. More ants poured over the palings. Now, near the rear wall and spreading toward the center of the village, it seemed there was a growing, lengthening, rustling, living carpet of insects. I slapped my arm and ran toward the hut in which originally, our party had been housed in this village. With my foot I broke through the sticks at its back. [Explorers of Gor p 400]

Bee
I saw small fruit trees, and hives, where honey bees were raised; and there were small sheds, here and there, with sloping roofs of boards; in some such sheds might craftsmen work; in others fish might be dried or butter made.  [Marauders of Gor p81]
 
Beetle
“That is a frevet.” The frevet is a small, quick, mammalian insectivore. “We have several in the house,” he said. “They control insects, the beetles and lice, and such.”   [Mercenaries of Gor p276]

Centipede
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]

Fly - Needle; Sand
“Listen,” said a man. “I hear it,” said another. I myself had never heard the sound before, but I had heard of it. “Such vast clouds, so black,” said a man. “They cover the entire horizon,” said another, wonderingly. “The sound comes from the clouds,” said a man. “I am sure of it.” “I do not understand,” said a man. At such a time, which occurs every summer in the delta, the rencers withdraw to their huts, taking inside with them food and water, and then, with rence, weave shut the opeings to the huts. Two or three days later they emerge from the huts. “Ai!” cried a fellow, suddenly, in pain. “It is a needle fly,” said a fellow. “There is another,” said a man. “And another,” said another. Most sting flies or needle flies, as the men of the South call them, originate in the delta, and similar places, estuaries and such, as their eggs are laid on the stems of rence plants. As a result of the regularity of breeding and incubation times there tends, also, to be peak times for hatching. These peak times are also in part, it is thought, a function of a combination of natural factors, having to do with conditions in the delta, such as temperature and humidity. and, in particular, the relative stability of such conditions. Such hatching times, as might be supposed, is carefully monitored by rencers. Once outside the delta the sting flies, which spend most of their adult lives as solitary insects, tend to disperse. Of the millions of sting flies hatched in the delta each summer, usually over a period of four or five days, a few return each fall, to begin the cycle again. “Ai!” cried another fellow, stung. Then i heard others cry out in pain, and begin to strike about them. “The clouds come closer!” cried a fellow. There could now be no mistaking the steadily increasing volume of sound approaching from the west. It seemed to fill the delta. It is produced by the movement of wings, the intense, almost unimaginably rapid beating of millions upon millions of small wings. “Needle flies are about!” cried a man. “Beware!” “The clouds approach more closely!” cried a man. “But what are the clouds?” cried a fellow. “They are needle flies!” cried a man. I heard shrieks of pain. I pulled my head back, even in the hood. I felt a small body strike against my face, even through the leather of the hood. I recoiled, suddenly, uttering a small noise of pain, it stiffled by the gag. I had been stung on the shoulder. I lowered my body, so that only my head, hooded, was raised above the water. I heard men leaping into the water. The buzzing was now deafening. “My eyes!” screamed a man. “My eyes!” The flies tend to be attracted to the eyes, as to moist, bright objects. I felt the raft pitch in the water as men left it. The sting of the sting fly is painful, extremely so, but it is usually not, unless inflicted in great numbers, dangerous. Several stings, however, and even a few, depending on the individual, can induce nausea. Men have died from the stings of the flies, but usually in such cases they have been inflicted in great numbers. A common reaction to the venom of the fly incidentally is painful swelling in the area of the sting. A few such stings about the face can render a person unrecognizable. The swelling subsides, usually, in a few Ahn. [Vagabonds of Gor p160]
Following such rains, great clouds of sand flies appear, wakened from dormancy. These feast on kaiila and men. Normally, flying insects are found only in the vicinity of the oases. [Tribesmen of Gor p152]

Gitch
We watched a large, oblong, flat bodied black object, about half a hort in length, with long feelers, hurry toward a crack at the base of the wall. “That is a roach,” he said. “They are harmless, not like the gitches whose bites are rather painful.” [Beasts of Gor p277]

Grasshopper
“Oh!” cried the girl, startled. A grasshopper, red, the size of a horned gim, a small, owllike bird, some four ounces in weight, common in the northern latitudes, had leaped near the fire, and disappeared into the brush. [Explorers of Gor p293]

Hinti
‘Hala’ is Kaiila for the Gorean hinti, which are small, active insects. They resemble fleas but are not parasitic. [Blood Brothers of Gor p219]

Leech
On my back, I said, I can feel it! A leech! Take it off! You can be covered with them, spying sleen, snarled the man, for all I care. I ask that it be removed, I said. Do not fear, said the fellow. They are only hungry. When they have their fill, they will drop off. Here is another, said a fellow wading near me, holding up its wet, half-flattened, twisting body in his hand. It was some four inches long, a half inch thick. [Vagabonds of Gor p96]

Lice
The hair of the below-deck girls, mercifully, is shaved off; indeed, our body hair, too, was shaved off, completely. These precautions prevent, to a great extent, the nesting of ship lice. [Slave Girl of Gor p321]
“We are going to test you for pox,” he said. The girl groaned. It was my hope that none on board the Clouds of Telnus had carried the pox. It is transmitted by the bites of lice. The pox had appeared in Bazi some four years ago. The port had been closed for two years by the merchants. It had burned itself out moving south and eastward in some eighteen months. Oddly enough some were immune to the pox, and with others it had only a temporary, debilitating effect. With others it was swift, lethal and horrifying. Those who had survived the pox would presumably live to procreate themselves, on the whole presumably transmitting their immunity or relative immunity to their offspring. Slaves who contracted the pox were often summarily slain. It was thought that the slaughter of slaves had had its role to play in the containment of the pox in the vicinity of Bazi. [Slave Girl of Gor p325]
I slapped his beak affectionately, as if we were in a tarn cot, and shoved my hands into his neck feathers, the area where the tarn can’t preen, as the tarn keepers do when searching for parasites. I withdrew some of the lice, the size of marbles, which tend to infest wild tarns, and slapped them roughly into the mouth of the tarn, wiping them off on his tongue. I did this again and again, and the tarn stretched out his neck. [Tarnsman of Gor  p142]

Rennel
I was told by Kamchak that once an army of a thousand wagons turned aside because a swarm of rennels, poisonous, crablike desert insects, did not defend its broken nest, crushed by the wheel of the lead wagon. [Nomads of Gor p27]
She was gasping and stumbling; her body glistened with perspiration; her legs were black with wet dust; her hair was tangled and thick with dust; her feet and ankles were bleeding; her calves were scratched and speckled with the red bites of rennels.
[Nomads of Gor p135]

Roach
We watched a large, oblong, flat bodied black object, about half a hort in length, with long feelers, hurry toward a crack at the base of the wall. “That is a roach,” he said. “They are harmless, not like the gitches whose bites are rather painful.” [Beasts of Gor p277]

Scorpion
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]

Spider {Cell, Rock}
I detected the odor of kort rinds, matted, drying, on the stones, where they had been scattered from my supper the evening before. Vints, insects, tiny, sand-colored, covered them. On the same rinds, taking and eating vints, were two small cell spiders.
[Tribesmen of Gor p115]
Also in the ground zone are varieties of snake, such as the ost and hith, and numerous species of insects. The rock spider has been mentioned, and termites, also. [Explorers of Gor p311]

Termite
Termites, incidentally, are extremely important to the ecology of the forest. [Explorers of Gor p312]

Vint
I detected the odor of kort rinds, matted, drying, on the stones, where they had been scattered from my supper the evening before. Vints, insects, tiny, sand-colored, covered them. On the same rinds, taking and eating vints, were two small cell spiders.
[Tribesmen of Gor p115]

Zarlit
I did see a large, harmless zarlit fly, purple, about two feet long with four translucent wings, spanning about a yard, humming over the surface of the water, then alighting and, on its padlike feet, daintily picking its way across the surface. [Raiders of Gor p5]