INSECTS
ANT,
Marcher: Known in
the jungles of Schendi as 'The Marchers'. These aggressive carnivorous
insects are about 2 inches long, with a shiny black exoskeleton and
two antennae. Their name is derived from their, apparently seasonal,
marches through the jungle in a single column, yards wide and pasangs
in length. They may number in the millions, their path widening to
as much as 500 feet when they overtake, swarm over, and devour all
flesh, living or dead, in their path. Their bite is extremely painful,
but not poisonous. Their victims die from being weakened from relentless
attack, being overcome until they are still. “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, pages, 399-403 ARTHROPOD: a creature found in the tunnels
of the Nest of the Priest-Kings. It is 8 feet long and a yard high with
a multi-segmented body and 8 legs. Its eyes are on long stalks. 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, 32:311 FLY:
a number of types of flies can be found in the different areas to which
the readers are taken. From the far northern arctic fly to the Taharian
sand fly, most will be described as larger than the usual house fly
found on Earth. Most of them are also said to bite. Fly, Arctic At certain times in
the summer even insects will appear, black, long-winged flies, in great
swarms, coating the sides of tents and the faces of men. --Beasts of
Gor, 12:196 Fly, Needle (also known as Sting Fly)NEEDLE
FLIES (sting flies):
Originate in the delta and similar places. Its sting
is extremely painful but it is usually not dangerous unless inflicted
in great numbers. - Vagabonds of Gor, page 161 "Listen,"
said a man. Fly, Sand ...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, 10:152
ZARLIT
FLY:
large, harmless, purple insect about two feet long with 4 long, translucent
wings, with a span of about a yard. It is able to walk on top of water
because of its padlike feet and feeds on small insects. GITCH:
biting insect; description is vague, although it is used near mention of
roaches GOLDEN
BEETLE: an insect roughly the size
of a rhinoceros which lives in the caverns below the Nest of the Priest-Kings
in the Sardar Mountains; its prey is the Priest-Kings themselves. It
releases an aroma that is so compelling to a Priest-King that to die
by that method is referred to as succumbing to the 'Pleasures of the
Golden Beetle' GRASSHOPPER,
Red:
beyond color, this insect is described as weighing around 4 ounces. LEECH,
Marsh: described
as rubbery about 4 inches long; it attaches itself to plants in the
marsh or float free in the water, waiting for warm-blooded animals.
They fasten themselves to their victim to suck blood until, satiated,
they detach. Can be removed with fire or salt. They are edible. Leech
Marsh - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Leesh Salt
- Vagabonds of Gor pages
96-97, 99-100, 102
LICE: Mentions
of lice are numerous, more particularly the large, marble-sized variety
said to be found on Tarn. Other mentions are found pertaining to a more
'common' type, including the fact that they are, like on Earth, responsible
for the spread of epidemic types of illnesses.
...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, 16:321 Lice,
Tarn: RENNEL: a crablike poisonous desert
insect. ROACH:
Described as black, oblong and flat and said to be essentially harmless.
"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." - Mercenaries of Gor, 22:276-277 ROCK
SPIDER: an inhabitant of the rainforests
lower level this brown or black spider camouflages itself by tucking
legs under its body to look like a rock hence its name; it will catch
small rodents or birds in its web. SCORPION: found in the canopy level
of the rainforest. SLIME
WORM:
a long slow blind worm that inhabits the caverns below the Nest in the
Sardar; scavenges the remains of the Golden Beetles kills. TERMITE: TOOS: a crab-like organism with
overlapping plating; inhabits the Nest and scavenges on discarded fungus
spores. VINT: tiny, sand-colored insects
found in the Tahari Desert.
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"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 openings 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, are 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 stifled 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, 17:160-162.jpg)
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...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. 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 termite "dust," thereafter,
by the action of bacteria, is reduced to humus, and the humus to nitrogen
and mineral materials....-Explorers of Gor, 32:311-312
