Thoat

A thoat is a long, sleek creature with eight legs and a broad, flat tail, and a large mouth that splits their head nearly in half. On Barsoom, they serve the same function as horses on Earth. Two species of thoat are known, the smaller breed (about the size of a horse) used by the red martians is an exact replica in appearance of the larger far more dangerous variety used by the green martians, the smaller type of thoat is known to have a rare white variety. Thoats are slate in color shading into yellow at the feet, and their bellies are white. The tail of the thoat is less wide at the root than it is at the tip. The thoats survive almost solely on the yellow moss that covers much of the surface of mars.