almost since the beginning of warfare humans have realized that animals can be used to
help them bite their enemies the roles they took depended on the animal some were used for mounted
combat others were used to transport cargo or deliver important messages but of course every
now and again some people got creative when it came to the way they employed animals in war
10. hannibal's war elephants we might as well start off with the most famous example of animal
warfare the time when hannibal crossed the alps with elephants to fight the romans this happened
in 218 bc marking the start of the second punic war between the two mediterranean powers of the
time roman carthage the first punic war where hannibal's father hamilkar served
as a general had ended in a roman victory therefore when hannibal decided to wage war
he wanted to do something bold and unexpected he wanted to cross the alps and march straight into
italy thus bypassing the roman navy and its allied garrisons at the time it was considered impossible
to cross the alps with an army and indeed even hannibal found the journey incredibly treacherous
during the ascent they were ambushed and harassed by garlic tribes and the descent was full of
narrow icy paths that caused lots of people to plunge their deaths and if that wasn't dangerous
enough hannibal did all of this with dozens of elephants in tow the risky gamble paid off though
in december hannibal reached italy and fought the romans at the battle of trebia the roughly
three dozen war elephants fulfilled their role beautifully terrifying enemy horses and sowing
complete chaos among the roman cavalry leading to a decisive victory for the carthaginians
9. genghis khan's fire cats and swallows humans have been using animals as incendiary devices
for thousands of years one infamous story which may or may not be true involves genghis khan
who reportedly used swallows and cats during his war with the western shia empire in china
while laying siege to the city of volojoy during the early 13th century genghis offered terms of
peace the mongols would lift the siege in exchange for a thousand cats and ten thousand swallows the
shia agreed to their terms quickly gathering the required animals and presented them as tribute
however the mongols had other plans they tied bits of cotton to the tails of the animals and
set them on fire and then released them near the city's edge in a panic most of the animals fled
back into the city which was predominantly made of wood the people inside volahi were overwhelmed by
thousands of fires cropping up at once meanwhile the mongols took advantage of chaos and confusion
and stormed the city number eight the explosive rats of the second world war this one comes
from world war ii courtesy of britain's special operations executive or soe the basic premise was
rather simple take some dead rats cut them open fill them with explosives and then sew them back
up the explosive rodents would then be given to spies and resistance fighters who could infiltrate
german-run factories and other buildings in occupied france and simply leave them on the
floor the thingy was the workers or soldiers who stumbled upon the dead rats would dispose
of them by tossing them in the furnace causing an explosion however the rat bombs were never
actually used because the germans intercepted the first shipment and became wise to the plan
even so the soe was ultimately happy with the results because it caused the germans to spend a
lot of time and effort checking other dead rats to see if they'd been booby-trapped the soe concluded
the trouble caused to them was a much greater success to us than if the rats had actually
been used 7. the trouble sniffing gerbils we move on now from the world of guerrilla warfare to the
secretive world of espionage as we take a look at an attempt to turn gerbils into spy catchers the
idea started with mi5 during the 1970s gerbils have the ability to detect increased adrenaline
levels in human sweat so it was thought that they could be used to sniff out spies terrorists or
other subversive operatives mi5 dropped the idea pretty quick but it was picked up by canadian
scientists who thought they could use gerbils in airports for the same purposes they suggested
that the furry rodents could be trained using pavlovian responses to push a lever when they
detected abnormal adrenaline levels they could then be kept at immigration lines of airports
and have fans discreetly waft them the sense of all the travelers believe it or not the scheme
was put into action by shin bet israel's internal security service who used the gerbils at tel aviv
airport unfortunately they soon discovered that instead of spies and terrorists the rodents were
detecting a lot of false positives consisting mostly of people who were carrying heavy luggage
or simply people who were nervous flyers 6. the kuwaiti field chickens you might think that
something called a poultry chemical configuration device would be something fancy and high tech but
you'd be wrong it actually was a chicken in a cage strapped to the roof of a military humvee
the chickens were used by american troops during the gulf war in order to detect dangerous gases
or chemical agents even though the soldiers were equipped with advanced detection devices
these sometimes gave inaccurate readings due to the pollution caused by exploding oil rigs
therefore the chickens served as a low-tech but effective alternative they had a very weak
respiratory system so if they died they showed the troops that it was time to put their gas masks on
functioning in a similar way to the old canary in the coal mine this strategy was dubbed by the
u.s army operation kuwaiti field chicken or kfc since the poultry were otherwise distant for the
dinner table 5. the sharkpedos of the u.s navy the u.s navy marine mammal program or nmmp has
been around since the 1950s as marine animals have proven very willing and effective when it comes to
offering support to navy troops particularly when it comes to mine detection and object recovery the
undisputed stars of the project are the bottlenose dolphin and the california sea lion nowadays they
are pretty much the only animal still used in the program but in its early years the nmmp
experimented with dozens of species of marine animals to see which ones were best suited for
a career in the navy and this included sharks the idea was to turn sharks into torpedoes strap bombs
to them and then stealthily guide them to their targets using electrical signals known as project
headgear this concept was researched during the cold war but had to be scrapped before ever being
put into action it seems that sharks simply refused to take orders and none of them ever
completed their course during trial runs number 4 the battle of the bees bees have been used in
warfare from ancient times all the way up to now since there are few things that can disrupt a unit
of soldiers faster than a swarm of angry bees it is said that king mithridates of pontus used mad
honey to incapacitate the romans at the siege of eupatoria king henry the first of england may have
used catapults to throw entire beehives right into the midst of his enemy's army and during
the vietnam war the viet cong placed colonies of the asian giant honeybees in the paths of american
soldiers and unleashed them using firecrackers or small explosives but perhaps insects played
the most important role at the battle of tango during world war one which also became known
as the battle of the bees taking place in november 1941 it was the first major battle
of the east african campaign an army of british and indian soldiers led by general arthur aiken
outnumbered the germans commanded by general paul von leto vorbeck by over eight to one and
yet they suffered a crushing defeat part of the reason was the inexperience and lack of training
of aitkin's forces another was the reinforced position of the germans but a crucial factor was
played by the bees all of the fighting disturbed multiple hives located on the battlefield they
attacked with ferocious determination and even though both sides were stung they focused most
of their wrath on the indian and british soldiers who were trying to cross the battlefield to reach
the germans atkins plan of a large-scale assault was scrapped which allowed leto vorbeck to
launch counter-attack that won in the battle number three the scorpion bombs of hatra
staying in the world of invertebrates we now examine one effective weapon used against the
romans during the second parsian war by king barcelona of hatra the scorpion bomb in 198 a.d
septimius severus laid siege on the stronghold city of hatra in modern day iraq but the romans
did not know that hatred was home to a dangerous species of scorpion called the death stalker
nor did they know that king bosamia had entire terracotta pots filled with these
arachnids as he regularly sent out people to clear the road and keep them safe for caravans you can
probably guess what happened next these pots were turned into scorpion bombs that rained down on the
romans who tried to approach the walls of hatred while the sting of the death stalker was really
fatal it certainly was potent enough to debilitate the soldiers and inflict agonizing pain ultimately
severus decided to lift the siege and abandon the city number two the anti-pigeon force of mi5
we all know now that pigeons can be invaluable assets in times of war their remarkable homing
abilities make them perfect messengers able to carry vital information even to and from
the front lines hundreds of thousands of pigeons were used in world war ii so unsurprisingly people
also became interested in ways of countering the feathered flyers and stopping them from
reaching their destination that is where mi5 came in as the british secret security agency
trained peregrine falcons to patrol the skies and take out any pigeons they encountered on the
chance that they might be carrying important communications between the germans and their
spies abroad their anti-pigeon force was set up on the silly isles in 1942 and kept a lookout
for any pigeons that might have been trying to make their way to france but at the same
time britain employed its own pigeons and during an intelligence-gathering operation called source
columba it airdropped over 16 000 of these birds into german-occupied france and the netherlands in
the hopes that the locals would send them back with valuable information to that end mi5 then
set up a falcon destruction unit which consisted of snipers who were trained to take out wild
falcons and other raptors that might have posed a danger to the pigeons returning home to britain
1. the stampeding cattle of songhai so far we've seen some instances of animal warfare that
turned the tide of battle but we finish with one example which helped bring down an entire empire
during the 16th century the saudi dynasty of morocco invaded the neighboring songhai empire
the two sides met in combat at the battle of tondibi on march 13 1591. this was the first time
that the songhai encountered gunpowder weapons and they were clearly not prepared for them in
a foolish move they decided to employ a strategy they'd used before which was to start their attack
by unleashing a giant stampede of hundreds of cattle the goal was to drive the animals through
the center of the enemy lines causing casualties and chaos unfortunately for them they did not
anticipate the effect that gunpowder weapons would have on the cattle the animals became terrified
of the smoke and loud noises they turned around and stampeded through the songhai army instead
leaving it completely vulnerable to the invading moroccans the songhai lost the battle of tondibi
and their empire collapsed soon after so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did
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