Many animals on Usiren are similar to Earth animals. Examples include humans and goats. Other animals are different enough to be better called by their own distinctive names. This article will focus on non-sophont animals. As there is no bright line between "mythical" or magical animals and mundane ones, both can be included here.

Goat

The Usirenic goat is much like the earth goat. Goats are kept for meat, milk, and fiber. There are many breeds, which may be generalists or be most of use for one of these products. Goats resemble Shadhavar in more or less the same way that humans resemble apes, and they are a taboo meat to both shadhavar and most urban unicorns. While human use of goats for dairy and wool has usually been regarded merely as strange by shadhavar, goat butchering is sometimes a cause of conflict in areas where human pastoralists and shadhavar overlap.

Takin

The takin, a large relative of the goat, is used to draw war chariots. There are no large horses in the vicinity of the Shun, and most adult humans are too large to ride Takins, but they can be used to draw carts and chariots, and as hardy pack animals. Domestic breeds are specialized for speed, for use in battle, or for strength (for hauling heavy carts, wagons, or ploughing.)

Takins also provide milk and meat, though they are considered inferior to the goat by most humans. Their wool is valued, however, and their lanolin is used in ointments and cosmetics. The unicorn taboo against goat-eating also applies to the takin.

Teopes

The teopes (pl. teopoi) is a large semi-aquatic herbivore, valued for its meat, blubber, and hide, and as a beast of burden which can tow water vehicles. They are vaguely similar to a combination of a manatee and a hippopotamus. Wild teopoi are not aggressive, but can become belligerent if annoyed. Domesticated breeds are better-tempered. Teopoi can dive, but their breath-holding ability is not as good as true marine mammals. Their native environments are brackish estuaries, slow-moving rivers, deltas, and sometimes mangroves and other sheltered coastal areas, but landraces are adapted to various aquatic conditions. They will come inland to sleep, and sometimes to graze, if water-based food is unavailable, but never stray very far from water sources. The average domestic teopes is about 800kg and about 2m long. The gestation period is 10 months, and usually a single calf is born every year.

Teopoi were almost unknown during the First Shunhaurat, and the coming of Sea People grazing their teopoi herds on the ghales water-weeds is considered to be a defining event in the establishment of the Second Shunhaurat.