Leever

The Leever is a sand-dwelling creature known for its burrowing capabilities. The foe is found most often in desert climates but has been known to live inside dungeons spanning from the original The Legend of Zelda to Twilight Princess, and it has changed little in terms of behavior and appearance since its first incarnation.

Characteristics
Leevers make their first appearance The Legend of Zelda specifically in the deserts and beaches of the overworld, since established as their trademark habitat. These ground-dwelling, cone-shaped creatures burrow out of the ground, or remain at a semi-burrow as in The Adventure of Link, upon detecting movement and begin pursuing territorial threats until they tire or vacate the proximity of intruders. Twilight Princess brings a certain graphical realism to the Leever, giving it a stronger plant-like appearance, not to mention a top-like shape, unlike the cone figure reminiscent of its most common incarnations.

Leevers are often fast-moving creatures,  only increasing their lethality in numbers. Leevers are almost always fought in groups, as many of these creatures target and hone in on Link at once in order to maximize the chance of inflicting damage and ridding their territory of threat.

Variations
Although the behavior of the Leever changes little between games and variations, they do seem to possess varying levels of vitality and strength by color. In The Legend of Zelda, there are two varieties of Leever, red and blue, with the blue type being the strongest,, a trend that carries on into A Link to the Past, where a standard green Leever and a slightly stronger purple variety co-exist.

Attack strategy is a second characteristic added to the different Leever variations, beginning with the species seen in Link's Awakening and on through to the Oracle series. These Leevers come in three colors: red, blue, and orange. The red Leevers travel in a straight line, while the blue variety tends to zig-zag at random intervals. The orange version is arguably the most difficult of the three, as it actively pursues Link, not to mention at an increased speed in comparison to its red and blue counterparts.

Weaknesses
The overall strategy to defeat any Leever, regardless of game, is to attack it with the sword or any quantifiable weapon used to defeat any other commonplace enemy. One to three hits should be enough to defeat any incarnation of Leever. Generally, Leevers can be dodged entirely, but in Ocarina of Time, Link becomes completely immune to their presence while riding Epona.

Trivia

 * An interesting point to note is that when Z-targeting normal Leevers on Ocarina of Time, the target is green instead of the normal yellow that targets enemies.
 * In Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, the Leever is one of the enemies, along with the Guay and the Stalchildren, that will appear in a larger form after the defeat of a certain number of its standard species.