SOURCE: At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (All-Story Weekly, April 4-25, 1914)

DESCRIPTION: "And now, as the two stood frozen in terror, I saw the author of that fearsome sound creeping stealthily into view. It was a huge tiger—such as hunted the great Bos through the jungles primeval when the world was young. In contour and markings it was not unlike the noblest of the Bengals of our own world, but as its dimensions were exaggerated to colossal proportions so too were its colorings exaggerated. Its vivid yellows fairly screamed aloud; its whites were as eider down; its blacks glossy as the finest anthracite coal, and its coat long and shaggy as a mountain goat. That it is a beautiful animal there is no gainsaying, but if its size and colors are magnified here within Pellucidar, so is the ferocity of its disposition. It is not the occasional member of its species that is a man hunter—all are man hunters; but they do not confine their foraging to man alone, for there is no flesh or fish within Pellucidar that they will not eat with relish in the constant efforts which they make to furnish their huge carcasses with sufficient sustenance to maintain their mighty thews..." (At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs)

NOTES: The tarag is the saber-toothed tiger of ancient days, though larger in the Pellucidarian version.

HISTORY: Burroughs was probably inspired by the Cave-Tigers in C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne's The Lost Continent. This is the scene that George Lucas pays homage to in the arena scene in Attack of the Clones.

Frank Frazetta's Pellucidar Covers

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