Marine Life of Gor
BINT:
There are two types of bints. One is a small, carnivorous freshwater fish like a piranha that inhabits the rivers of the rainforests. A large school of these bints can strip a carcass bare in minutes. The other type is a fanged, carnivorous marsh eel.
"Such blood might attract the bint, a fanged, carnivorous marsh eel, or the predatory, voracious blue grunt, a small, fresh-water variety of the much larger and familiar salt-water grunt of Thassa." - Explorers of Gor, page 267
COSIAN WINGFISH:
Also known as songfish due to its whistling mating song; a tiny blue salt-water fish with 4 poisonous spines on its dorsal fin, found in the waters off the island of Cos. Its liver is considered a delicacy in Turia.
" Near her, one night, lying off her shore, silently, I heard the mating whistles of the tiny, lovely Cosian wingfish. This is a small, delicate fish; it has three or four slender spines in its dorsal fin, which are poisonous. It is called the wingfish because it can, on its stiff pectoral fins, for short distances, glide through the air, usually in an attempt to flee small sea tharlarion, who are immune to the poison of the spines. It is also called a songfish, because, in their courtship rituals, males and females thrust their heads from the water, uttering a kind of whistle. Their livers are regarded as a delicacy." - Raiders of Gor, page 139
DOCK EEL:
A black freshwater eel 4 feet long, weighing 8-10 lbs. Carnivorous and aggressive, they inhabit the shallow waters around the dock and wharves of river ports.
"I looked downward. Two or more heads, tapering, menacing, solid, were emerged from the water, looking up at me. Then, streaking from under the water, suddenly breaking its surface, another body, some four feet in length, about eight or ten pounds in weight, leapt upward. I felt the jaws snap and scratch against the shearing blade. Then it fell twisting back in the water. It was the blood which excited them." - Guardsman of Gor, page 130
EEL:
A voracious animal which can maim or kill a slave in moments. Some varieties are edible. Varieties include river eel, black eel, and spotted eel.
"Many estates, particularly country estates, have pools in which fish are kept. Some of these pools contain voracious eels, of various sorts, river eels, black eels, the spotted eel, and such, which are Gorean delicacies. Needless to say a bound slave, cast into such a pool, will be eaten alive." - Magicians of Gor, page 428
GINT:
A tiny freshwater fish which inhabits the rivers of the rainforests inland of Schendi. It has bulbous eyes and flipper-like fins and is amphibious, having both lungs and gills. It is capable of walking on its pectoral fins and is often found in the company of tharlarion, feeding off the scraps of their kills.
"I recalled, sunning themselves on the exposed roots near the river, tiny fish. They were bulbous eyed and about six inches long, with tiny flipperlike lateral fins. They had both lungs and gills. Their capacity to leave the water, in certain small streams, during dry seasons, enables them to seek other streams, still flowing, or pools. This property also, of course, makes it possible for them to elude marine predators and, on the land, to return to the water in case of danger. Normally they remain quite close to the water. Sometimes they even sun themselves on the backs of resting or napping tharlarion. Should the tharlarion submerge the tiny fish often submerges with it, staying close to it, but away from its jaws. Its proximity to the tharlarion affords it, interestingly, an effective protection against most of its natural predators, in particular the black eel, which will not approach the sinuous reptiles. Similarly the tiny fish can thrive on the scraps from the ravaging jaws of the feeding tharlarion. They will even drive one another away from their local tharlarion, fighting in contests of intraspecific aggression, over the plated territory of the monster's back. The remora fish and the shark have what seem to be, in some respects, a similar relationship. These tiny fish, incidentally, are called gints." - Explorers of Gor, page 299
GINT, giant:
A large cousin of the gint found in western Gor similar in appearance but with a 4-spined dorsal fin. It is also amphibious and capable of walking on its pectoral fins.
"The creature which had surfaced near us, perhaps ten feet in length, and a thousand pounds in weight, was scaled and had large, bulging eyes. It had gills, but it, too, gulped air, as it had regarded us. It was similar to the tiny lung fish I had seen earlier on the river, those little creatures clinging to the half-submerged roots of shore trees, and, as often as not, sunning themselves on the backs of tharlarion, those tiny fish called gints. Its pectoral fins were large and fleshy." - Explorers of Gor, page 384
GRUNT:
There are a few different types of this fish. One type is a large, carnivorous salt-water fish that inhabits Thassa. It is often attracted to the scent of blood like a shark. The blue grunt is a small, voracious, carnivorous freshwater fish also attracted to blood. It is particularly dangerous during the daylight hours preceding its mating periods. During its mating period, they are harmless. They are also more of a threat when they school and not when a solitary individual is encountered. The white-bellied grunt is a large game fish which feeds on parsit fish..
" A small voracious carnivorous freshwater fish related to the Thassa grunt; like its larger cousin it is attracted by blood. Such blood might attract the bind, a fanged, carnivorous marsh eel, or the predatory, voracious blue grunt, a small, fresh-water variety of the much larger and familiar salt-water grunt of Thassa. The blue grunt is particularly dangerous during the daylight hours preceding its mating periods, when it schools. Its mating periods are synchronized with the phases of Gor's major moon, the full moon reflecting on the surface of the water somehow triggering the mating instinct. During the daylight hours preceding such a moon, as the restless grunts school, they will tear anything edible to pieces which crosses their path." - Explorers of Gor, page 267
"Half out of the water, then returning to it, I saw a great speckled grunt, four-gilled. It dove and swirled away. Another man came to help with the line. I observed the struggle. One often fishes from the ships on the Thassa, and the diet of the sailors consists, in part, of the catch. Part of each catch is commonly saved, to serve as bait for the next ". - Slave Girl of Gor, page 360
" Before each guest there were tiny slices of tospit and larma, small pastries, and, in a tiny golden cup, with a small golden spoon, the clustered, black, tiny eggs of the white grunt." - Fighting Slave of Gor, page 276
LELT:
A small (5-7 inches) blind fish with fernlike filaments at either side of the head which are its sensory organs; white with long fins it swims slowly and is the main food of the salt shark; inhabits the brine pits such as those at Klima in the Tahari.
"Lelts are often attracted to the salt rafts, largely by the vibrations in the water, picked up by their abnormally developed lateral-line protrusions, and their fernlike craneal vibration receptors, from the cones and poles. Too, though they are blind, I think either the light, or the heat, perhaps, from our lamps, draws them. The tiny, eyeless heads will thrust from the water, and the fernlike filaments at the side of the head will open and lift, orienting themselves to one or the other of the lamps. The lelt is commonly five to seven inches in length. It is white, and long-finned. It swims slowly and smoothly, its fins moving the water very little, which apparently contributes to its own concealment in a blind environment and makes it easier to detect the vibrations of its prey, any of several varieties of tiny segmented creatures, predominantly isopods. The brain of the lelt is interesting, containing an unusually developed odor-perception center and two vibration-reception centers. Its organ of balance, or hidden ‘ear’, is also unusually large, and is connected with an unusually large balance center in its brain. Its visual center, on the other hand, is stunted and undeveloped, a remnant, a vague genetic memory of an organ long discarded in its evolution." - Tribesmen of Gor, page 259.
MARINE SAURIAN:
There are two types of marine saurian. One type being harmless with a long neck and rows of sharp teeth. Its feeds on garbage and small fish. The other type is a fish-like predator with long, toothed snouts that are silent and aggressive; sailors fear them as they do the long-bodied sharks.
"I had seen, yesterday, the long neck of a marine saurian lift from the waters of gleaming Thassa. It had a small head, and rows of small teeth. Its appendages ere like broad paddles. Then it had lowered its head and disappeared. Such beasts, in spite of their frightening appearance, are apparently harmless to men. They can take only bits of garbage and small fish. Certain related species thrive on crustaceans found among aquatic flora. Further, such beasts are rare. Some sailors, reportedly, have never seen one. Far more common, and dangerous, are certain fishlike marine saurians, with long, toothed snouts; they are silent and aggressive, and sailors fear them as they do the long-bodied sharks." - Slave Girl of Gor, page 360
OYSTERS:
Presumably the same as earthen oysters they are found in the delta of the Vosk.
"Other girls had prepared the repast, which, for the war camp, was sumptuous indeed, containing even oysters from the delta of the Vosk, a portion of the plunder of a tarn caravan of Ar, such delicacies having been intended for the very table of Marlenus, the Ubar of that great city itself." - Captive of Gor, page 301
PARSIT FISH:
There are several types of this slender, silvery fish with brown stripes. They are migratory fish and the principal prey of sea sleen.
"The men with the net drew it up. In it, twisting and flopping, silverish, striped with brown, squirmed more than a stone of parsit fish. They threw the net to the planking and, with knives, began to slice the heads and tails from the fish." --Marauders of Gor, page75.
RIVER SHARK:
A narrow, black, vicious, carnivorous fish with a triangular dorsal fin that inhabits the rivers of Gor.
"Something, with a twist of its great spine, had suddenly darted from the waters under the pier and entered the current of the Laurius. I saw the flash of a triangular, black dorsal fin. I screamed. Lana looked out, pointing after it. "A river shark," she cried, excitedly". - Captive of Gor, page 79
SALT SHARK:
A long-bodied (12' or more) carnivorous fish having gills situated under the jaw, several rows of triangular teeth, a sickle-like tail and a sail-like dorsal fin. It inhabits brine pits such as those of the Tahari.
"Look!" I cried. This time it was close, surfacing not ten feet from the raft. We saw the broad, blunt head, eyeless, white. Then it submerged, with a twist of the long spine and tail. The steerman was white. "It is the Old One," he said. On the whitish back, near the high dorsal fin, there was a long scar. Part of the dorsal fin itself was rent, and scarred. These were lance marks. "He has come back," said one of the men. The waters were still. At the top of the food chain in the pits, a descendant, dark-adapted, of the terrors of the ancient seas, stood the long-bodied nine-gilled salt shark". - Tribesmen of Gor, page 261
MARSH SHARK:
Long bodied, nine-gilled inhabitant of the rence island areas of the marsh, they are almost eel-like.
"Beyond them would be the almost eel-like, long-bodied, nine-gilled Gorean marsh sharks." - Raiders of Gor, page 58
SORP:
A shellfish, common especially in the Vosk river, it is similar to an oyster and also produces pearls.
"They are probably false stones," I said, "amber droplets, the pearls of the Vosk sorp, the polished shell of the Tamber lam, glass colored and cut in Ar for trade with ignorant southern peoples." – Nomads of Gor, page 20
WHALES:
There are several varieties of whales on Gor including the Karl whale, baleen whale, and the Hunjer Long Whale, a rare toothed black whale which eats cuttlefish.
"Before we had slept that night, and after Imnak had constructed our shelter, he removed from the supplies several strips of supple baleen, whale bone, taken from the baleen whale, the bluish blunt fin, which we had taken before taking the black Hunjer whale.” Beasts of Gor, page 334
"Sometimes they managed to secure the northern shark, sometimes even the toothed Hunjer whaleor the less common Karl whale, which was a four-fluked, baleen whale.” - Beast of Gor, page 36
