Rumbler

Rumblers are massive but gentle herbivores with rough, leathery gray-brown hide, horselike heads, sloping backs and legs as big around as tree trunks.

In the fifth book, Mishanti and Bundi find a pair of orphaned rumbler calves and tame them. Although the cubs become to fond of them to want them as food, the rumblers prove helpful in protecting the smaller herd animals from predators and are instrumental in saving the clan females from the splinter group of face-tail herder led by True-of-Voice's son.

Real Life

Rumblers are based on Indricotherium, an extinct relative of the modern rhinoceras which lived 31-23 million years ago. 18 feet (5.5 m) high at the shoulder, with a nearly 5 foot long (1.5m) skull and weighing as much as 20 tonnes. They were herbivores which browed on leaves and twigs high up in trees.