Martian Wildlife
Mars and its Dreamlands are home to a variety of strange and monstrous creatures. Just a few examples of the creatures that can be found there include:
Contents
"White Apes"
Savage, hairy, albino giants with four arms found in subterranean areas of the Dreamland of Barsoom. These beasts are sometimes described as resembling a "large white gorilla with extra arms", but in fact actually seem to be savage and feral Gugs.
"White Apes" originally appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" novels; the similar Gugs are a creation of H.P. Lovecraft.
Hormad
Synthetic Protoplasmic Men:
Hormads are are grotesque synthetic organisms originally created by Martian scientists to serve as slaves, workers, warriors, etc. Hormads are grown in giant vats from protoplasmic masses (see Proto-Shoggoths) and hypnotized into generally humanoid forms, though the process is far from perfect, often generating in monstrosities that diverge in shockingly vast degree from any ideal human form.
Hormads originally appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" novels.
Plant Man
Plant Men from the polar crater valley Dor are strange creatures between 10 and 12 feet in height, similar in form to humans, with a head and face that are featureless except for a single white eye and a "nose like an open wound", tantacled arms that end in sucking mouths full of grasping talons and needle-sharp teeth used to feed on tender vegetation or blood sucked from living animal and humanoid victims, a body covered in shaggy black tendrils or "hair" resembling earth-worms, and a tail that tapers from a round profile to a flat blade shape at the tip. These strange creatures are herded and controlled by cannibal Therns as a trap for those unfortunate travelers the Therns trick into journeying into the Martian valley Dor: after the Plant Men have drained victims of their blood, the corpses are gathered and butchered as meat for the tables of the Therns.
Plant Men originally appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" novels.
Leech of Yoh-Vombis
A strange, nocturnal or subterranean, slug-like parasitic creature which clings turban-like to the top of a humanoid victim's head, dissolves the flesh, skull, and parts of the brain for food, and then controls its host, driving the remnants of its victim down into the darkness of hidden vaults beneath the ruins of Martian cities, to a near-immortal fate worse than death. See Leech of Yoh-Vombis for more details.
Leeches of Yoh-Vombis are the creation of Clark Ashton Smith from his story "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis".
Red Weed (Red Creeper)
The Uliri invasion may also brought with them, perhaps accidentally, the "Red Weed" or "Red Creeper", a dense red vine that glows purple at night, tastes vaguely metallic, grows and reproduces explosively in water, and shares the Uliri vulnerability to Earth's bacteria. The Red Creeper seems to have flourished on Mars, where it has flooded the Martian canals, choking whole regions of that dying world off from a much-needed water supply; it is likely that the Red Weed, like the Uliri, are an invasive species alien even to Mars, with the Red Creeper either serving as food for the Uliri invaders, or trailing along with them as microscopic spoors and spreading unnoticed or poorly understood by the Uliri due to their alien disregard for sanitation, disease, and decomposition.
Red Weed is the creation of H.G. Wells, from his story War of the Worlds.
Soraks: Martian Cats
Soraks, strange six-legged Martian Cats, have long flourished in the Dreamlands of Earth and the Martian Dreamland of Barsoom, and are sometimes encountered on waking Mars even today, where from hiding they seem to be carefully watching over and searching the cold, silent sands of their doomed world, as if searching or waiting for something important, or perhaps observing intruders into the virtually dead Martian wastelands merely out of typical cat-like curiosity.
In the distant past of Martian history, Soraks were kept in the households of White Martian royalty, and sometimes worshiped as gods. Today, even Cats from Earth and Earth's Dreamlands tend to find Soraks to be peculiar, aloof, solitary, arrogant, capricious, mischievous, and given to strange ideas, humors, and habits. Martian Cats are said to sometimes serve (at least, to the extent that any cat can be said to "serve" anything) small and eccentric Martian gods, and from time to time Cats from Mars, generally regarded as either mad or as perpetrators of some elaborate Sorak hoax, have been known to travel to Ulthar and even to Earth on the pretenses of trying to recruit Earthly cats into peculiar cat cults working through absurd means toward enlightenment over unearthly cat mysteries.
Still, from time to time, these Martian Cats have been known to break their aloof distance to help cat and human travelers and Dreamers to Barsoom or Mars out of a tight spot for any of a variety of peculiar reasons (such as the opportunity to play a game of riddles, or for company, or to strike a bargain for a favor in return, or just for the creatures' own strange amusement), but these secretive and inscrutable creatures otherwise tend to keep their mysterious motives and goals to themselves.
Soraks originally appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" novels.
Vortlup
Their food-supplies and water-barrels were carried on the backs of three of those curious mammals called vortlups, which, with their elongated legs and necks, and horny-plated bodies, might seemingly have been some fabulous combination of llama and saurian. These animals, though extravagantly ugly, were tame and obedient, and were well-adapted to desert travel, being able to go without water for months at a time [and] wholly insensible to the blowing sand in their scaly mail...."
- Clark Ashton Smith, "The Dweller in the Gulf"
The Vortlup is a creation of Clark Ashton Smith, and appears in his Martian stories as a pack animal native to Mars, and roughly equivalent to a llama, camel, or dromedary.
Zitidar
Zitidars, a large six-legged draft animal similar to a mastodon, are still bred on Mars by the Uliri and their Red Martian slaves as a food source for the Uliri invaders, fattened on the Red Creepers and stagnant water of Martian canals.
Zitidars originally appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" novels.
Thoat
A few feral Thoats, six-legged native Martian riding animals, can still be found in the wild places of Mars, but most domesticated examples seen today can be found only in the Martian Dreamland of Barsoom.
Thoats originally appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" novels.
Calot
Calots (intelligent - and perhaps sentient - ten-legged dog-like creatures with wide frog-like mouths, which once served as the Martian equivalent of dogs) are almost never seen outside of the Martian Dreamland of Barsoom today, though a few examples may still live wild in dark corners of Mars working together in feral packs.
Calots originally appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" novels
Other Life on Mars
"Although scientific evidence seems to indicate that Mars is a cold, desolate world, many scientists today speculate on what the planet might be like if conditions were somewhat different. With a little more water and oxygen than expected, there could be an astonishing array of life on Mars, a totally different sequence of living things following its own pattern of evolution.
"There might be plant life that migrates in search of richer soil; there might be plants that feed on other plants, or even plants that feed on themselves.
"And if animal life has developed on Mars, it too may have taken many new and unexpected forms.
"There might be animals with heavy insulation to conserve body heat in the sub-freezing night. Or perhaps the bitter surface conditions have driven some life underground to develop in a dark, mysterious environment.
"If it is true that there are dust storms on Mars, life could have developed ways of protecting itself. On the other hand, there might be creatures that actually thrive on the ever-present dust.
"Some organisms working with powerful digestive acids may be able to feed directly on minerals in the rocks, leaving a fantastic Martian sculpture in their wake.
"If in the thin Martian air there are creatures that can fly, their wings must of necessity be four times as large. However, flight might be achieved by other means. On Mars, even as on Earth, live would surely be a competitive struggle for survival. There might be fantastic hunters who kill by concentrating the heat of the Sun on their victims, devastating creatures that envelope their quarry in shrouds of poisonous gas, or maybe ominous ultra-sonic beams who shatter their prey with high-frequency sound waves.
"It is possible that entirely new chemical patterns of life may have developed on Mars: life based on the silicon atom instead of carbon would be more resistant to the extreme cold, providing a whole new range of weird forms. Feeding on the drifting sand, tall crystal spires may grow to maturity in a single day, only to be shattered in a crescendo of destruction in the cold Martian night.
"Just as it is impossible to conceive an intelligent life totally different from our own, so we may find our Earth-trained minds unable to comprehend the weird phenomena that could exist on this strange new planet!"
- Disney's Tomorrowland: Life on Mars
References
- Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp Barsoom novels
- Clark Ashton Smith's "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis"
- Video: "Disney's Tomorrowland: Life on Mars"
