Insects of Gor

Insects of Gor




Ants

"The column of 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."

Explorers of Gor - pg. 399

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Gitches

"That is a roach," he said. "They are harmless, not like the gitches whose bites are rather painful. Some of them are big fellows, too. But there aren't many around. The frevets see to it. Achiates prides himself on a clean house."

Mercenaries of Gor - pg. 277



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Golden Beetles

"What does the Golden Beetle kill?" I asked.

"Priest-Kings," said the second slave."

Priest-Kings of Gor - pg. 106




"The Golden Beetle was not nearly as tall as a Priest-King, but it was probably considerably heavier. It was about the size of a rhinoceros and the first thing I noticed after the glowing eyes were two multiply hooked, tubular, hollow, pincerlike extensions that met at the tips perhaps a yard beyond its body. They seemed clearly some aberrant mutation of its jaws. Its antennae, unlike those of Priest-Kings, were very short. They curved and were tipped with a fluff of golden hair. Most strangely perhaps were several long, golden strands, almost a mane, which extended from the creature's head over its domed, golden black and fell almost to the floor behind it. The back itself seemed divided into two thick casings which might once, ages before, have been horny wings, but now the tissues had, at the points of touching together, fused in such a way as to form what was for all practical purposes a thick, immobile golden shell. The creature's head was even now withdrawn beneath the shell but its eyes were clearly visible and of course the existence of its jaws. I knew the thing before me could slay Priest-Kings."

Priest-Kings of Gor - pg. 180




"The exudate which forms on the mane hairs of the Golden Beetle, which had overcome me in the close confines of the tunnel, apparently has a most intense and, to a human mind, almost incomprehensibly compelling effect on the unusually sensitive antennae of Priest-Kings, luring them helplessly, almost as if hypnotized, to the jaws of the Beetle, who then penetrates their body with its hollow, pincerlike jaws and drains it of body fluid.

Misk's Priest-Kings began to leave their hiding places and their posts of vantage and come into the streets, their bodies inclining forward, their antennae dipped in the direction of the lure of the Beetles. The Priest-Kings themselves have nothing, explained nothing, to their dumbfounded human companions but merely laid aside their weapons and approached the Beetles."

Priest-Kings of Gor - pg. 257



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Grasshoppers

"A grasshopper, red, the size of a horned gim, a small, owl-like bird, some four ounces in weight, common in the northern latitudes, had leaped near the fire, and disappeared into the brush."

Explorers of Gor - pg. 293



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Lice

"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."

Tarnsman of Gor - pg. 142



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Matoks/Toos

"I swung the transportation disk in a graceful arc to one side of the tunnel to avoid running into a crablike organism covered with overlapping plating and then swung the disk back in another sweeping arc to avoid slicing into a stalking Priest-King who lifted his antennae quizzically as we shot past.

"The one who was not a Priest-King," quickly said Mul-Al-Ka, "was a Matok and is called a Toos and lives on discarded fungus spores."

Priest-Kings of Gor - pg. 142



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Rennels

"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 - pg. 27



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Rock Spiders

"They are called rock spiders because of their habit of holding their legs folded beneath them. This habit, and their size and coloration, usually brown and black, suggests a rock, and hence the name. It is a very nice piece of natural camouflage. A thing line runs from the web to the spider. When something strikes the web the tremor is transmitted by means of this line to the spider. "

Explorers of Gor - pg. 294



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Slime Worms

"We had not walked far when we passed a long, wormlike animal, eyeless, with a small red mouth, that inched its way along the corridor, hugging the angle between the wall and the floor. "

Priest-Kings of Gor - pg. 105


"What do you call it?" I asked. "Oh," said one of the slaves. "It is a Slime Worm." "What does it do?" I asked.

"Long ago it functioned in the Nest," said one of the slaves, "as a sewerage device, but it has not served that function in many thousands of years."

"But yet it remains in the Nest."

"Of course, " said one of the slaves, " the Priest-Kings are tolerant."

"Yes," said the other, "and they are fond of it, and are themselves creatures of great reverence for tradition. "The Slime Worm has earned its place in the Nest," said the other.

"How does it live?" I asked.

"It scavenges on the kills of the Golden Beetle," said the first slave."

Priest-Kings of Gor - pg. 106



"Its tiny mouth on the underside of its body touched the stone flooring here and there like the poking finger of a blind man and the long, whitish, rubbery body gathered itself and pushed forward and gathered itself and pushed forward again until it lay but a yard from my sandal, almost under the shell of the slain Beetle.

The Slime Worm lifted the forward portion of its long, tubular body and the tiny red mouth on its underside seemed to peer up at me. "

Priest-Kings of Gor - pg. 186



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Termites

"Termites, incidentally, are extremely important to the ecology of the forest. In their feeding they break down and destroy the branches and trunks of fallen trees. The etermite dust thereafter by the action of the bacteria is reduced to humus, and the humus to nitrogen and mineral materials."

Explorers of Gor - pg. 312



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Vints

"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."

Tribesmen of Gor - pg. 115


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Zarlit Flies

"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 - pg. 5

"The zarlit fly is very large, about two feet long, with four large, translucent wings, with a span of about a yard. It has large, padlike feet on which, when it alights, it can rest on the water, or pick its way delicately across the surface. Most of them are purple. Their appearance is rather formidable and can one a nasty turn in the delta, but happily, one soon learns they are harmless, at least to humans."

Vagabonds of Gor - pg. 160