Gora

The Gora are a sapient species native to Saturn's satellite Titan.

Biology
The Gora physically resemble 3 ft tall seahorses with top-heavy bodies, scaly armoured skin and four short legs with hoofed feet. Inside their snouts is a piercing needle-like hollow proboscis which they use to perforate the Titanians' throats and feed on their glandular secretions: a process which doesn't seem to harm the Titanians.

History
When the humanoid Titanians (who, despite their name, originate from outside the Sol System) arrived to colonize Titan, bitter wars were fought between them and the native Gora, especially after the latter realized that the Titanians' glandular secretions were not only nutritious, but could also be used as a flux to treat metals and facilitate metalworking. In spite of their technological superiority, the Titanians found themselves at serious danger of losing the war and being enslaved by the Gora.

Eventually, the two races agreed on a symbiotic arrangement in which the Gora would work in the Titanians' cities, performing all labour while the Titanians would live in comfort and allow the Gora to periodically drain them of their precious glandular fluids. The Titanians are content with this arrangement, describing it as having outwitted their opponents and turned the tables on them, making the Gora their slaves rather than the other way around. In reality, however, the Gora have full control of the city and have relegated the Titanians to a status analogous to aphids in an ant colony, kept alive only for their fluids: a situation to which the Titanians remain oblivious.

Appearances

 * "Trouble on Titan", by Arthur K. Barnes (1941)