Originally endemic to Tatooine, the hardy ronto has been imported onto many technologically backward worlds to serve as a beast of burden. A saurian herbivore with a gentle disposition, albeit with a skittish streak, adult rontos stand between four and five metres tall, half of which is their long, strong necks. Quadrupedal, the rontos torsos slope downward from their shoulders to their hips, with their forelimbs being slightly longer and thicker than the rear pair. Their legs end in wide, thick-toed feet tipped with thick nails that help to spread their considerable bulk – on average six to eight tonnes – evenly to enable the animals to cross even soft sand without sinking. Rontos have large heads terminating in beak-like mouths, small eyes and two pairs of ears, the smaller pair standing upright atop the skull and the lower pair long and drooping, on the side of the head. Large folds of skin around the face and neck help to protect the vulnerable sensory organs during sandstorms. In addition, some sub-species have a large sail of skin on the dorsal surface of their neck that they can erect to help radiate additional heat and keep their body cool.

Rontos are covered in a tough, but flexible hide that helps them regulate heat. This hide, with its numerous bony disks, called osteoderms, also provides protection from most of the predators and gives the animal its signature cobbled appearance. Young rontos are preyed on by larger predators such as sand panthers, but adults have no natural predators save the occasional krayt dragon or sarlaac. The Jawas of Tatooine have long domesticated these animals, which serve as mounts or pack animals, able to go places where the ubiquitous sandcrawlers cannot. One note that ronto handlers note is that rontos require copious amounts of water daily, an oddity in desert dwelling creatures. In addition, ronto keepers know to place feed in troughs elevated at least three metres off the ground, mimicking the natural height at which rontos graze. This is to prevent the animals from toppling forward if they have to bend forward, as the lack of a heavy tail to counterbalance the thick neck means that rontos have to be careful to avoid stretching their necks out horizontally to avoid losing their balance.