A groundlion was a type of creature that could pounce. When she was a cadet at the Taharim Academy, Chiss Admiral Ar'alani enjoyed creating wire sculptures, and groundlions were one of her favorite subjects. By studying her groundlion sculptures, fellow cadet Thrawn was able to understand her tactics in hand-to-hand combat and thus defeat her in a duel with soft-coat sticks.
Groundlions were represented in the Chiss board game Tactica, and shared their name with a line of Chiss Defense Force capital ships called the Groundlion man-of-war.