A large monster species dwelled on the jungle moon known as Yavin 4. This creature, characterized by its substantial size, shaggy hair, and prominent tusks, was a hunter within the jungle environment. During the year 23 ABY, one of these creatures launched an attack on the spacer named Peckhum just outside the Jedi Praxeum; however, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker intervened, driving the monster back into the jungle's depths.
This species possessed a distinctive triangular head atop a somewhat square body, covered in shaggy hair. Its face was adorned with twelve tentacles, each terminating in an eye featuring a slitted pupil. Equipped with lengthy and sharp tusks inside its mouth, it was comparable in size to a shuttle and moved on six large legs.
In the year 23 ABY, the spacer Peckhum piloted his supply shuttle, named the Lightning Rod, to Yavin 4 as part of his routine supply deliveries to the Jedi Praxeum. During this visit, he was set upon by one of these monsters. He reached for his blaster rifle to defend himself, but Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, sensing the monster's confusion rather than aggression, used the Force to flung Peckhum's weapon away. Skywalker then calmed the creature, much to the astonishment of his Jedi students Jacen Solo, Jaina Solo, and Tenel Ka, as well as Peckhum himself. The monster then retreated back into the jungle, resuming its search for other food sources.
The monster's inaugural appearance was in Young Jedi Knights: Heirs of the Force, a book penned by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta and published in 1995.