A creature capable of leaping, the groundlion, held significance. During her time as a cadet at the Taharim Academy, Chiss Admiral Ar'alani – referred to as she – found pleasure in crafting wire sculptures, with groundlions being a recurring and favored theme. Thrawn, a fellow cadet, gained insights into her hand-to-hand combat strategies through analyzing these groundlion sculptures, ultimately leading to his victory over her in a duel involving soft-coat sticks.
The groundlion also appeared as a figure in the Chiss strategy game Tactica, and the name was used for a class of Chiss Defense Force capital ships, specifically the Groundlion man-of-war.