It apparently breathes by releasing gases or steam. It also contains filamentous strands and spheres of color. The creature can thicken and gel around someone within it. A victim's flesh will tingle and burn due to the corrosive elements within the creature. Saphrar would place men into the pool and the victims would find themselves unable to escape the creature and they would slowly be killed. It might take hours for a victim to be fully digested by this beast. A few men have lived as long as three hours. Slashing or cutting it generally does no harm to it. But, it has a collection of threads and granules in a transparent bag, imbedded in a darkish yellow jelly. This is walled off by a translucent membrane. This area is vulnerable to attack and it reacts violently when this area is threatened. It may then solidify and push out someone irritating until you are standing on its now hard outer shell. Tarl Cabot was fed to this creature but learned how to irritate it. Once he found he could not escape its clutches, he swam within it towards its center. He attacked the darkish bag and it reacted by expelling him. The creature would then later be killed by being burnt to death once the Tuchuks had taken the city.
99. Zad: This is a large, broad winged, black and white bird with a long, narrow, yellowish, hooked beak. There is a variety found in the Tahari, scavengers like vultures. There is a jungle zad in the rain forests, but it is less aggressive than the desert ones. They both like to tear out the eyes of weakened victims.
100. Zadit: This is a small, tawny-feathered, sharp billed bird of the Tahari. It is insectivorous, feeding on sand flies and other insects. It often lands on kaiila and eats the insects on this animal. They leave small wounds on the kaiila which the drovers treat with poultices of kaiila dung.
101. Zarlit fly: This is a large, harmless, purple insect about two feet long with four translucent wings spanning a yard across. It is insectivorous. It hums over water and alights on the water with its padlike feet daintily walking across the surface.
102. Zeder: This is a small, sleen-like carnivore from the rain forests. It frequents the Ua River and its tributaries. It grows to two feet and weighs eight to ten pounds. It is diurnal, can swim well, and builds a stick and mud nest in tree branches where it sleeps at night.