By Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor)

Armed and dangerous! Not a phrase that leaps to mind to describe monkeys, except in  science fiction fantasies. Indeed, to promote the movie “Rise of Planet of the Apes” (2011), 20th-Century Fox created a YouTube video that quickly went viral, showing  a chimpanzee terrorizing African soldiers with an AK-47. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhxqIITtTtU

As bizarre as the notion of employing monkeys as soldiers seems, the possibility has occurred to military commanders seeking secret weapons and surprise tactics. Monkeys’ intelligence, physical agility, ability to emulate humans, and capability to manipulate simple mechanisms means that they are easily trained to play a role in warfare.

Who were the first monkeys to see action in war? Before the invention of gun powder fire-arms in China (ca 13th century), a 9th century Chinese chronicle (“Yu-yang-tsah-tsu” by Twan Ching-Shih) describes annual battles between soldiers of Po-mi-lan and 300,000 giant rock-throwing apes who came down from the high craggy mountains of the west to ravage crops every spring.

The earliest documented case of gun-toting monkeys appears in a Chinese account of 1610 (“Wu-tsah-tsu” by Sie Chung-Ghi). It  describes General Tseh-ki-Kwang’s campaign against Japanese marauders in the 16th century. Capturing a troop of monkeys from Mount Shi-Chu in Fu-Tsing, he and his men trained the simian recruits to shoot fire-arms (or at least aim). When the general sent the monkey militia to the front and gave the order to fire, the terror-stricken Japanese raiders fled. Then the human soldiers hiding in ambush leaped up and slew them all.

In 2003, during the Iraq War, President George W. Bush turned down Morocco’s offer of 2,000 monkeys from the Atlas Mountains trained to deactivate and detonate land mines. In ancient times no one expressed qualms about “weaponizing” animals out of sympathy for the creatures. But today, these controversial examples open discussion of the ethics of forcing animal “volunteers,” from dogs to dolphins, to perform violent or dangerous acts in wars perpetrated by humans.

About the author: Adrienne Mayor is a Research Scholar in Classics and History of Science, Stanford University. She is the author of “Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World” (2009);  “The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myths in Greek and Roman Times” (2011); and “The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy,” a nonfiction finalist for the 2009 National Book Award.

By Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor)

Paleontological hoaxes and fraudulent fossils are assumed to be modern phenomena. The earliest case is generally thought to be in 1725, when phony fossils carved by rivals ruined Johann Beringer’s reputation. The notorious Piltdown Man fraud was perpetrated in 1913. Since the startling discovery of  feathered dinosaur remains in China, very sophisticated bogus fossils have fooled amateurs and scientists. The most scandalous incident occurred in 1999 when National Geographic featured a “missing link”  feathered dinosaur, later exposed as a cunning composite of real fossils. Fossil forgery has a long history in China. Well-preserved fossil fish impressions were so popular in twelfth-century China that numerous counterfeits were produced.

Fossil replicas were not always intended to defraud, however. Fossils gathered in antiquity, from large vertebrate bones to small shells, emerge from archaeological sites around the world. These discoveries are mute testimony to ancient people’s interest in living organisms somehow transformed to stone. Such marvels were worked into decorations, placed in graves, or dedicated in temples—and sometimes they were duplicated for reasons not yet understood.

In Malta, islands south of Sicily, fossils attracted attention at a very early date. In the sixth century BC, the Greek philosopher Xenophanes observed marine shells embedded in Malta’s bedrock and concluded that the islands had once been under the sea. According to the Roman statesman Cicero, Malta’s great Temple of Juno was renowned for its treasure of ivory tusks of prodigious size (most likely Pleistocene mammoths). But evidence for Maltese fossil collecting goes back even further. As early as 3000 BC, heaps of  fossil teeth from the gigantic Miocene shark Carcharodon megalodon were dedicated in sacred sites. By 2500-1500 BC, Maltese potters were using the serrated shark teeth to decorate clay bowls with parallel grooves. Much later, in the Middle Ages, Maltese shark teeth (glossopetrae, tongue stones) became such a sought-after miracle remedy in Europe that laws forbade faking them.

The Maltese had been manufacturing “fossils” for their own uses since the Neolithic period. As Xenophanes had noticed, helicoid gastropod fossils (screw-shaped shells) of are common. These small Miocene fossils turn up in vast numbers in the most archaic stone temples on Malt.  But what really surprised the archaeologists were the oversized man-made replicas among the real fossils, some carved from limestone and others modeled in baked clay. The only other similar artifacts known from this era are gold and marble shark vertebrae discovered in Minoan sanctuaries on Crete.

These artifacts are the earliest datable replicas of fossils. Do they represent ancient efforts to figure out how the mysterious spirals had been formed? Were the fossils so valuable that forgeries were worthwhile? Were they objects of veneration? All we can say for sure is that from earliest antiquity, fossils were not only highly prized but artfully imitated.

About the author: Adrienne Mayor is a Research Scholar in Classics and History of Science, Stanford University. She is the author of “The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myths in Greek and Roman Times” (2011) and “The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy,” a nonfiction finalist for the 2009 National Book Award.

By Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor)

Chasing game  (rabbits, deer, bear, boar) for food and sport was extremely popular in classical antiquity, and dog owners took good care of their hunting companions. Ancient hunting manuals by two Greek historians, Xenophon (b. 430 BC) and Arrian (AD 86) preserve lively practical advice on raising hounds.

So, if you lived in Athens at the time of Socrates and owned a Laconian hunting hound like those depicted on Greek vases, what would you feed them? Ordinary pups get barley bread softened with cow’s milk or whey. But more valuable puppies eat their bread soaked in sheep or goat milk. You might add a little blood from the animal you expect your puppy to hunt. At dinner with your family, you scoop soft chunks of bread from the center of a loaf  to wipe grease from your fingers—and toss them to your dog, supplemented with bones and other table scraps, perhaps even a basin of meat broth. After a sacrifice or banquet, you make a special treat: a lump of ox liver dredged in barley meal and roasted in the coals. Naturally, as a matter of professional courtesy, you share any rabbits, stags, or boars with your faithful hunting partners.

Was such a diet nutritious? The idea that dogs’ principle sustenance must be red, raw meat is a popular misconception. In the wild, canines hunt plant- and grain-eating animals. At the kill, they first eat the stomach filled with predigested grass and cereals, and then the organs, before turning to the flesh. They often gnaw the bones, thus assuring a balanced meal with vitamins and minerals. That Greek dogs thrived on their grain and meat diet is confirmed by Aristotle (b. 384 BC), who remarked that a hard-working Laconian hound usually lived to be 10 or 12 years old, and other breeds reached the age of 14 or 15. Today’s average 50 pound dog can expect the same lifespan as Xenophon’s Laconian hounds.

Should your dog suffer from worms, wheat awns (whiskers) are recommended. But a more aggressive treatment is Artemesia, wormwood, a natural antihelmintic to expel parasitic worms. What if your neighbors complain that your hound keeps them awake at night? You resort to the ancient cure for excessive barking and conceal a live frog in a lump of his food.

About the author: Adrienne Mayor is a Research Scholar in Classics and History of Science, Stanford University. She is the author of “Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World” (2009) and “The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy,” a nonfiction finalist for the 2009 National Book Award.