It has often been said that the most dangerous feature of Tedellian besiioths are its eyes. Despite formidable claws and fangs, and thick musculature hinting at its high-gravity world origins, the eyes are the most frightening. Poets have said that looking into the eyes of a besiioth is the same as staring death in the face. Those cold, red orbs have caused many sentients to look away in fear ... just before the fangs draw first blood and the unforgiving jaws clamp down for a single, fatal grip.
Besiioths are strong and hardy hunters from the vast plains of the high-gravity world of Tedel. A thorough carnivore, their natural diet consists of grazing herd animals. While they appear slow and bulky, they are frighteningly fast, with a viciousness to match. Their eyesight is geared toward the lower end of the light spectrum, and thus they often hunt by using their vision to spot heat sources. They have a very limited sense of smell, so their vision makes them ideally suited for plains environments. Besiioths are never naturally found in forest or jungle regions, but as they are often kept as guard beasts they may nonetheless be encountered in these areas (either set loose by their owners or they have somehow escaped).
Besiioths are known to have seven separate subspecies, with size and coloration marking the biggest distinctions. Members of these different subspecies can interbreed, although this rarely occurs in nature. It is known that privately-funded geneticists have produced several new breeds. Of particular interest is the "stalker besiioth," which is reputed to have a greatly enhanced sense of smell, as well as slight changes to muscular development. The result is an animal well-suited to mountainous and forested regions; they are particularly in high demand in certain black market circles.
What is universal about all of the breeds is that all besiioths are feral, dangerous hunters who view anything that does not attack first as a potential meal.
Of the naturally occurring breeds, the common plains besiioth is the most well-known. Its coloration ranges from light brown to light green, and its limbs are slightly longer than other breeds. Its can live up to 38 local years (about 43 standard years). Young are born live in litters of up to four cubs. The plains besiioth is also famous in that it is the breed most readily adapted to standard gravity environments. While it cannot truly be "trained" for guard animal purposes, they can effectively be used as such when equipped with neural inhibitor/controllers. While many planets have restrictions on this type of modification, it is known that many Imperial regimes choose to ignore violations of these statutes. | 
