Every day, humans express themselves in a myriad of weird and wonderful ways. Our body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice all convey some form of meaning. From a subtly raised eyebrow to a sharp rejoinder, these signals dominate our every social interaction.

While we are intimately familiar with our own methods of communication, the rest of the animal kingdom has a few surprises up its sleeve.

Nature has conjured an amazingly diverse range of communication strategies. For example, some insects use chemical signaling to create trails. New-world monkeys wash themselves in their own urine to attract mates. And meerkats use auditory calls to warn each other about dangerous predators.

These messages are part of a fascinating evolutionary arms race. Animals on the bottom rung of the food chain may send bogus messages to confuse eavesdropping predators. Other times, a predatory animal will broadcast deceptive signals, luring its prey into a brutal death trap.

As this list reveals, having an effective communication strategy can be the difference between life and death. To quote the English poet Alfred Tennyson: “Nature, red in tooth and claw.”

10 Deaf Moths Click Their Wings

Many insect eaters feast on a nutritious diet of mosquitoes and moths. But several species of moth are starting to fight back. Curiously, the Yponomeuta moth “talks” its way out of trouble.

The deaf creature’s wings are packed with sound-producing structures called tymbals. As the critter beats its delicate wings, these translucent structures twist and turn. This buckling triggers a series of ultrasonic clicks that its nemesis, the predatory bat, detects via echolocation.

But what do these signals do?

While some moths produce ultrasound to acoustically “jam” a bat’s sonar capabilities, the Yponomeuta has its own cunning trick. They mimic the clicking noises of the more toxic tiger moths. Over time, the bats associated these clicks with poisonous moths and so learned to avoid them.^[1]

Some grass moths whisper “ultrasonic courtship songs” to serenade potential mates. As part of the species’ survival strategy, the males can only beam these sounds over a very short distance. Too much excitement and the moth could end up as bat food.

9 Tree-Cuddling, Urine-Spraying Bears

Bears have a strange way of making themselves known. These solitary creatures are often seen rubbing their backs against trees, almost as if they have an interminable itch. By the end of this display, the tree is peppered in the creature’s thick fur. The scratches, bite marks, and oozing tree sap send a clear message to other bears in the region: “This is my territory.”

Brown bears use a range of chemical signals to mark territory and assert their dominance. For example, anal gland secretions and urine are commonly sprayed across the local flora. Bears have an astonishing sense of smell, so these chemical signposts are easily detected.

Large brown bears use the trees to send messages about their status in the hierarchy. Subordinate bears then decode these messages to avoid potentially deadly confrontations with dominant bears. According to biologist and bear researcher Melanie Clapham, “rub trees” ensure that bears at every level of the hierarchy have safe access to females and feeding sites.

It is likely that some cubs use rub trees to protect themselves. Adult males have been known to kill cubs in a bid to mate with new mothers. Researchers have evidence to suggest that these cubs will try to ape the smell of a dominant bear by pressing up against scent-laden trees.^[2]

Both brown bears and polar bears have large sweat glands between their toes. As they stomp around on all fours, the creatures’ paws release distinctive scents. This pungent aroma reveals a bear’s sex and reproductive status. Sometimes, the bear will go that extra mile, mashing its own urine and sweat secretions into the ground.

8 Sneeze For Democracy

The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) is an endangered species native to sub-Saharan Africa. These pack hunters typically fall in line with the strongest members of their group. The dominant male bonds with the dominant female, and the pair govern the pack’s day-to-day activities. But the dogs seem to show a curious appreciation for democracy, too.

In 2014, a team of researchers went out to the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust to study the behaviors of the wild dogs. The zoologists were surprised to learn that the dogs were conducting their own social rallies.

The vote system was even more perplexing. After forming an assembly, the wild dogs would sneeze at one another to indicate their preferences. The more sneezes issued, the more likely the pack commenced a hunt.

A “sneeze threshold”—called the “quorum”—is needed before the pack comes to an agreement. If the social rally is initiated by a lower-ranked dog, around 10 sneezes are needed. But if a dominant male or female calls a rally, the threshold could be as low as three sneezes.^[3]

Similar coordination has been observed in meerkats. A chorus of “moving calls” is needed to bring about a democratic consensus over where to forage. When three or more meerkats issue the call, the mob must work together to find a new site.

7 The Internet Of Fungus

Beneath our very feet lies a giant information superhighway, similar to the Internet but biological. This network is comprised of tiny fungal threads called mycelium. Hundreds of millions of years ago, some of these networks even seeded enormous tree-sized fungi that burst from the soil.

Today, these sprawling networks can grow to astronomical sizes. The soil around the Blue Mountains of Oregon is home to a fungal network that spans a staggering 2,384 acres. This 2,400-year-old fungus is Earth’s largest known organism.^[4]

Fungi have a mutually beneficial relationship with 90 percent of all land-based plants. Mycelial networks form around the roots of plants and trees, protecting them from harmful bacteria and improving nutrient uptake. They decompose plant matter, maintain healthy soil, and feed nutrients from one plant to another.

For example, members of many tree species use these networks to share nutrients with young, undernourished trees. In exchange for this service, the fungi receive a source of carbohydrates.

Individual plants can essentially talk to one another through the mycelial network. In 2010, Chinese researchers discovered that tomato plants use these fungal structures to send distress signals.

After encountering a deadly organism, infected plants would use the mycelial network to share information with their neighbors. The healthy plants would then produce defensive enzymes to resist the disease.

6 Spit-Swapping Ants Leave Pheromone Trails

Ants are highly social insects that live and work in large colonies. Coordination of nest construction, navigation, and colony defense are all achieved using a range of biological tools.

Ants often use pheromones to mark a food trail, showing other colony members where to forage. Other ants detect these chemical signals with their antennae and join the trail. As more and more ants strap on their work boots and join the trail, the pheromone scent grows stronger. This entices even larger numbers of ants to join in.

An ant secretes a cocktail of pheromones from the glands lining its abdomen, thorax, anus, and feet. The composition of this pheromone mixture plays a crucial role in communicating different ideas about a food trail. A trail’s scent tells an ant about both rewarding and unrewarding paths. Short-term scents can even serve as “attack signals” which direct the colony toward nearby prey.

Ants also exchange saliva as a means of recognizing different nest mates. This rather curious display, which looks a lot like mouth-to-mouth kissing, is called trophallaxis. The saliva contains pheromones, hormones, food, and genetic material. This exchange provides chemical information on the colony and reproductive status of a worker.^[5]

5 The Honeybee Waggle Dance

During the spring, honeybee workers scour the countryside in search of nectar, pollen, water, and tree resin. As with the humble ant, each individual bee must communicate its findings with the rest of the hive. The honeybee uses a very specific dance routine to do this: the waggle dance.

At first glance, the waggle dance may appear rather haphazard. But the carefully choreographed routine actually conveys a lot of very useful information.

First, the bee must grab the attention of its fellow nectar lovers. It clambers atop another bee and vibrates rapidly. When a large enough crowd has formed, the bee starts to bust some moves. It waggles its body while moving in a straight line. The duration of this “waggle run” tells the others how far away the flower patch is.

The dance direction tells the bees which way they must fly with respect to the Sun. If the dancer is jiggling upward, then the food is located in the direction of the Sun on the horizon. If the bee is facing downward, then the food is located in the opposite direction to the Sun on the horizon.

The dancing honeybee may provide onlookers with a sample of what she has found, regurgitating some of the nectar from her stomach. Before taking flight, the colony members sniff the dancer to get a better idea of what flower patch they are looking for.^[6]

4 African Knifefish Use Electrolocation

In 1949, British zoologist Hans W. Lissmann was enjoying a trip to the London Zoo when he noticed something unusual in one of the aquarium tanks. One of the fish demonstrated an incredible aptitude for swimming in reverse, blindly weaving around obstacles dotted about the tank.

It was the African knifefish. Lissmann already knew that the creature had an organ that could generate weak electric discharges. But he began to wonder whether these discharges were helping the fish navigate.

As luck would have it, Lissmann was given an African knifefish as a wedding gift. Within a short time, the researcher had answers. It became clear that the fish was transmitting electric fields from a small organ in its tail.

The distortions in these signals, which are detected via receptors in the skin, told the fish about its environment. Incredibly, the creature could distinguish between different materials based upon an object’s electrical conductivity.

Mormyrid fish not only use these electric organs to hunt in the murky depths of rivers and lakes but to also send coded messages to one another. Different discharge patterns indicate the behaviors, sex, species, and social status of the fish.

A particular type of mormyrid, the bulldog fish, uses electricity as part of its courtship ritual. The females are attracted to longer pulses as they are a sign of a strong partner. There is a slight problem, though. Predatory catfish have been known to intercept these signals, catching the crooning male with his pants down.^[7]

3 Crested Pigeons Use Wing Whistling

Crested pigeons have evolved a warning system that broadcasts information about potential predators. The crested pigeon, Ocyphaps lophotes, is native to mainland Australia. The bird has a very distinctive appearance with its green-purple wings and mohawk-like crest.

When startled, the bird launches into the sky and emits a series of panic-induced whistles. But these noises are not produced by the bird’s vocal cords. They are the result of vibrations in a part of the wing—specifically, the eighth primary feather.

With each upstroke of the wing, a low-frequency note is generated. Each downstroke produces a high-frequency note. The bird frantically flaps its wings while trying to escape an incoming predator. This triggers a quick succession of high and low notes, which other crested pigeons interpret as a warning signal.

Crested pigeons always whistle when taking off. However, a relaxed takeoff does not initiate any sort of warning signal. This is because the wing beat is too slow, resulting in a slower tempo of notes.^[8]

2 White-Lipped Frogs Communicate via Seismic Signals

During the 1980s, physiologist Peter Narins participated in a field trip to the El Yunque National Forest of Puerto Rico. The animal kingdom asserted its might, filling the professor’s ears with “a cacophony as loud as a subway train passing 6 meters (20 ft) away.” But Narins took a much keener interest in what was happening closer to the ground.

While observing the white-lipped frog, Leptodactylus albilabris, Narins noticed some unusual behavior. The nocturnal amphibian buried its rear in the ground and repeatedly inflated its vocal sac. The research team used geophones to listen in. As the frog chirped away, its sac would strike the ground and generate a sequence of thumps.

It turns out that this ritual was part of a territorial announcement issued by male frogs. The white-lipped frog is small and cannot compete with the bellowing croaks of much larger frogs. So the clever little guy evolved a rather ingenious work-around.

The inner ear of L. albilabris boasts a crystal-filled structure—the sacculus—which behaves like a biological seismometer. When the frog’s vocal sac inflates, the resultant vibrations travel through the ground and trigger the sacculi of nearby frogs. These signals allow male frogs to pinpoint one another and maintain their distance.

Narins went one step further and created his own faux frog out of spare typewriter parts. When he mimicked the thumping pattern, all the frogs within a 3-meter (10 ft) radius would respond in unison.^[9]

1 Elephants Use Sign Language, Sniffing, And Rumbles

Elephants are the masters of communication. These gentle giants communicate using touch, smell, acoustics, and sign language.

Elephant researcher and biologist Joyce Poole discovered that elephants use over 200 different calls and gestures. After studying the creatures for 40 years, Poole can reliably predict what an elephant will do based upon its posture, movement, and sounds. From the curl of a trunk to the flick of a head, each movement is deliberate and meaningful.

“I noticed that when I would take out guests visiting Amboseli [National Park in Kenya] and was narrating the elephants’ behavior,” explained Poole, “I got to the point where 90 percent of the time, I could predict what the elephant was about to do.”

Poole used her findings to create a database of elephant language. She even helped develop an online translator. Like humans, elephants have different personalities. Some elephants are coy and subtle. Others are expressive and outgoing.

An elephant that stands tall and spreads its ears is projecting aggression. Head waggling is a sign of playfulness. Foot-swinging gestures are a way of telling the herd which way to travel. And trunk “high-fiving” is seen during times of celebration.

An elephant adopts the “freeze position” when it espies potential danger. It alerts its allies by trumpeting a mix of high- and low-frequency sounds.^[10] The high-frequency sounds travel a short distance through the air. Low-frequency rumbles travel seismically over a much greater distance, typically between 8–10 kilometers (5–6 mi).

The Earth’s vibrations are detected in special nerve endings in the elephant’s trunk and feet. This allows elephants to talk to each other when separated. An elephant can even sense a zeal of stampeding zebra from several miles away.

An elephant’s trunk is essential for communication, too. Their trunks are packed with millions of olfactory receptor cells, giving elephants an incredible sense of smell.

Elephants will sniff and taste each other’s urine, feces, and secretions for chemicals. During bonding ceremonies, the females become so excited that they defecate and urinate everywhere. Important information about a herd member’s physiological state is encoded within these scents.

The trunk is also used during social rubbing to reinforce bonds between close family members.

Based on his expertise on ancient documents and biblical genealogies, the Irish Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656) estimated that our planet was created in the morning of October 23, 4004 BC. Our understanding of world chronology has come a long way since Ussher’s times, thanks to many of the clever dating methods we have developed.

10Linguistic Dating

As time goes by, two geographically isolated communities that speak the same language will display differences in the way they talk. After a few generations, language change becomes more significant. After thousands of years, we’re most likely faced with two related but totally independent languages.

Linguistics can date text on documents, pottery, building walls, and numerous other surfaces. Many important ancient texts have been dated on the basis of linguistic comparison, such as the Zoroastrian Avesta, which is believed to have been written somewhere between 1200–1500 BC based on linguistic similarities with the Indian Vedas.

9Tree-Ring Dating (Dendrochronology)

Most tree species produce new wood each year, resulting in rings of growth that can be easily detected in a cross-section of its trunk. By matching ring sequences from living trees of different ages, it is possible to create a long tree-ring sequence for hundreds, sometimes even thousands of years back in time.

In Alchester, north of Oxford in England, the remains of a Roman fort was uncovered by archaeologists. Thanks to the soil conditions, two large timbers that supported the gate structure survived. Dendrochronological analysis established that both trees were cut between October in the year 44 and March in the year 45, a date consistent with historical data, since the Roman conquest of Britain dates to AD 43.

8Seriation Dating

Many of us can mentally arrange most human creations in a chronological sequence. Archaeologists can do the same with past artifacts. Creations coming from a particular place and time display a distinctive style.

Pottery styles seriation is the foundation of many chronological sequences. Most human cultures later than 8000 BC possess a distinctive ceramic style. In Greece, for example, the Black Figure pottery style (black figures on red background) was dominant from 625 BC until 530 BC, when it became replaced by the Red Figure pottery (red figures on black background). A fragment of Greek Black Figure pottery found in an archaeological context may indicate that the context is no earlier than 625-530 BC.

7Thermoluminescence

Thermoluminescence (TL) can be applied to crystalline materials buried in the ground that have been previously exposed to fire, such as pottery. During a TL test, pottery is heated up, releasing trapped energy in the form of light. This light is measured, revealing the amount of time since the formation of the crystal structure.

From the moment the vessel was fired until the moment it is analyzed, the vessel had been absorbing radiation from the nearby environment. This energy is trapped and accumulated in the pottery’s mineral structure. For an accurate reading, archaeologists have to measure the radiation level at the exact place where the sample was found in the soil. This radiation level is not representative of the radiation level to which the sample was exposed prior to being buried, which is why TL dating has a precision of plus or minus 10 percent and it is often cross referenced with other dating methods.

6Electron Spin Resonance

Like TL, Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) also measures trapped energy. Unlike TL, the ESR test does not heat up the sample, which makes it suitable for materials that decompose when exposed to high temperatures.

ESR is typically used to date tooth samples. Once buried, tooth enamel begins to accumulate energy derived from background radiation. The precision of ESR dating is plus or minus 10–20 percent. Although this figure might seem inaccurate, ESR can provide valuable results for the study of early humans, where we often deal with figures of hundreds of thousands of years.

5Chronologies And Calendars

The dating of the most recent human past used to be largely based on historical chronologies, records and calendars left behind by past civilizations. But ancient calendars tend to run based on a local timekeeping system, normally aligned to a succession of local kings or ruling dynasties. The only way to make these calendars meaningful is to link them with our own calendar.

When two or more of these societies become in touch, we can sometimes find the same events recorded in two independent timekeeping systems, which allows us to align these different calendars. Alexander’s conquest of Egypt in 332 BC, for example, aligns Egyptian and Greek timekeeping systems.

4Cross-Dating

Before modern dating scientific techniques were developed, cross-dating was applied when artifacts from a known sequence coming from a historically dated region was found in areas for which we did not have any reliable chronological information.

While excavating the Palace of Knossos in the Greek island of Crete, several imported Egyptians items dated to 1500 BC were retrieved. This, combined with several examples of Cretan pottery found in Egyptian archaeological contexts of around 1900 BC, allowed archaeologists to extend Egyptian chronology into Crete.

3Radiocarbon Dating

Although the atom of carbon normally has six neutrons in its nucleus (carbon-12), we are surrounded by a small quantity of carbon containing eight neutrons (carbon-14). Carbon-14 is a high energy, unstable atom and tends to decay. The amount of carbon-14 in a given sample will be reduced to half (this is known as half-life) approximately every 5,700 years.

When an organism dies, the exchange of energy and matter stops, and it can no longer incorporate carbon-14 in its tissue. As time goes by, the amount of carbon-14 is reduced, and because we know the rate at which this loss takes place, we can estimate the time elapsed based on the reading of carbon-14 concentration.

This technique can be applied to almost any organic material (human remains, charcoal, plant remains, etc.). One limitation is the age of the sample: Material older than 70,000 years old do not have enough carbon-14 concentration to allow a precise reading. The same happens with samples that are too recent because the concentration of carbon-14 might be too high.

2Potassium-Argon Dating

Radiocarbon dating applied to East African hominin fossils did not produce any results, which suggested the remains of the earliest members of our human evolutionary tree were older than 70,000 years old. Archaeologists sought the help of geologists and a dating method known as Potassium-Argon dating.

Potassium-40 is a radioactive isotope that decays into argon-40, an inert gas. When new volcanic rock is formed, its content of argon-40 is emptied as the gas escapes. Its half-life is about 1.3 billion years. A reading of the relative number of potassium-40 and argon-40 atoms in a volcanic rock sample can be translated into the amount of time elapsed since the formation of the rock.

Many important archaeological sites where early hominins were found are located in areas abundant in volcanic rock. Sometimes, hominin remains are found within a geological layer that can be dated using the potassium-argon technique and some other times they are sandwiched between layers of volcanic rock that can be also dated with this dating method.

1Stratigraphy

As archaeologists conduct an excavation, they expose and study the stratification of the soil (the multiple layers of soil underneath the surface). If no evidence of either human or natural disturbance is found, it is assumed that the underlying layers were deposited prior to the overlying layers.

Stratification only tells us a relative chronological sequence from the earliest bottom layers to the newest archaeological deposits on the top. Some of the material we retrieve from these layers will be suitable for absolute dating. We may find organic material (e.g. bones) suitable for radiocarbon dating or maybe pottery fragments suitable for a Thermoluminescence test. In those cases, we can establish a date for all other items found in the same layer.

From time to time, YouTube videos of animals hunting prey in incredible ways pop up and go viral. Usually they’re one-off random events but there’s a long list of unknown and unusual methods that animals use frequently as their method for hunting.

As the saying goes, it’s a jungle out there. You also hear it’s survival of the fittest, but sometimes those which aren’t the fittest adapt and get crafty.

10 Times Wild Animals Saved Humans

10 Komodo dragon

These beasts, sometimes called ‘land crocodiles’, are the largest living lizards on earth, growing up to 3m long and weighing up to 70 kilograms. They are carnivores and have been known to have fatal encounters with humans, but don’t worry they’re largely restricted to a few remote islands in Indonesia, including Komodo (which is essentially a national park) hence the name.

Komodos hunt in packs but their method of killing is to charge their prey and attack their underside or throat with their sharp claws and serrated teeth, causing rapid blood loss or fatal lacerations. However, an initial Komodo charge may not always finish the job, instead severely wounding the prey, before the dragon proceeds to tear flesh off its grounded victim and eat them alive.

There’s also a theory their teeth contain venom to make matters worse for unfortunate prey.^[1]

9 Golden eagles

These birds of prey have a wide variety of diet, including squirrels, grouse, pheasants, reptiles and small birds, but they’ve become well known for their attacks on deer. These dark brown Northern Hemisphere eagles have powerful feet and sharp talons which enables them to swoop in from above and grab indefensive prey.

However, golden eagles went viral on Youtube after shocking videos emerged of them swooping on goats on the edge of cliffs, before picking them up and dropping them deliberately from a distance into the rocks below to kill them. The Golden eagles will then feed on the carcass of the dead goat. Given the weight of goats, sometimes more than 100 kilograms or 250 pounds, catching them and picking them up mid-flight is no easy feat. Eagles are opportunistic feeders but this is taking it to the next level.^[2]

8 Electric eel

There’s very few animals like electric eels when it comes to the way they hunt, utilizing their unusual electric charge to stun their prey. Electric eels usually inhabit dark and murky waters too, so their shock power can literally shock unsuspecting victims who become a meal within seconds.

An electric eel’s diet is carnivorous typically consisting of fish, crustaceans, insects and small vertebrates, like amphibians and reptiles. The eel uses its shock power or defence but also to hunt.

The eel’s motion sensitive hairs on its body detect any pressure change in the dark water, which triggers a doublet, which is two rapid electric pulses that hit the prey’s muscles, stunning them and eventually paralysing them, allowing the eel to consume it.^[3]

7 Deinopidae

These arachnids are commonly known as net casting spiders, which articulately explains their unique hunting technique to catch unsuspecting prey. Found in the tropics in Australia, Africa and the Americas, net casting spiders are hunters after dark, utilizing their exceptional vision from their huge eyes to spot prey – typically ants, moths, crickets or beetles—before casting their net over the victim in a lightning-quick movement.

The spider makes the net out of its own silk, sometimes three times its own size. It typically sets a faeces trap as a target point, before waiting in earnest for a victim to approach. At that moment, with its ogre-faced eyes ready for any movement, it entangles its prey at incredible speed with its net before biting and consuming them.^[4]

6 Frogfish

These anglerfish are super ugly and they’re also poor swimmers who typically remain on the ocean floor, but they’re highly effective hunters. Their unusual look is designed to help catch prey, with a combination of camouflage and mimicry. Once they lure in a victim, they strike a lightning speed, as little as 6 milliseconds (the reaction time for most humans is 200 milliseconds).

Frogfish are covered in spinules which help camouflage while some can change colour to blend in. Their technique to catch their prey doesn’t involve them moving, rather luring in victims with strange-looking appendages that are effectively bait. The appendages, which often look like worms, wiggle around when a victim approaches, luring it closer, before the frogfish strikes just as the prey is within grasp with its rapid ambush. The frogfish has a huge wide mouth which suddenly opens and engulfs the victim and a special muscle in the esophagus that ensures the prey cannot escape as its swallowed. Frogfish can swallow animals twice its size.^[5]

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5 Secretary birds

No, don’t be fooled by the name, there’s birds are tough and ruthless. It is a bird of prey but unusually it hunts terrestrially, meaning on land, as opposed to flying in from the air. The weapon of choice for secretary birds – who prefer to hunt in pairs—is their feet, as they kill their prey by kicking or stomping it to death. The secretary bird cases prey during the cooler parts of the day, eventually stomping on vegetation to flush them out before their stomping attack.

Native to Africa, secretary birds’ prey consists of insects such as locusts and beetles but also mammals such as mice, hares and mongoose. It’s also claimed that secretary birds sometimes kill snakes, such as cobras with their persistent stomps to the head to kill or immobilize. Secretary bird’s scientific name, Sagittarius serpentarius, translates to ‘the archer of snakes’. When they attack, they spread their wings and raise their feathered crest in a grandiose display of power and intimidation but also distraction, as a snake bite on the feathers won’t hurt the bird given the lack of flesh.^[6]

4 Margay

This solitary and nocturnal small cat, which is native to South and Central America, employs the rare technique of mimicry to lure its prey. The margay hunts small mammals, such as monkeys and squirrels, as well as birds, eggs, lizards and tree frogs while it’s also known to be vegetarian at times.

The margay has been known to vocalise the infant cries of monkeys such as wild pied tamarins. The premise of the vocalization is to attract prey, thus facilitating an attack and reducing the energy expended on the pursuit, improving the margay’s chances of success.^[7]

3 Archer fish

We all played with a ‘super soaker’ water pistol when we were young, but the archer fish took the concept to the next level, by making that its mode of hunting. Archer fish float near the surface and shoot land-based insects from a few metres away with their deadly combination of pinpoint aim and power with water from their mouths. If at first they miss, they are persistent and can actually shot seven streams of water from their mouth at one time.

The archer fish’s name comes from this technique, reflecting their ability to spit an ‘arch’ of water at its prey and they are sharp shooters at that. Found in brackish water habitats, largely in mangroves and estuaries in South East Asia and Northern Australia, archer fish can leap out of the water to attack if their shot doesn’t effectively bring down their prey.

With all this in mind, they’re one of very few animals to utilize tools around them—the water—to hunt.^[8]

2 Glowworms

These illuminated larvae may be pretty on the eye and utilized as a tourist attraction in some parts of New Zealand, but their glow is actually their hunting technique. Glowworms glow through bioluminescence, which is essentially the emission of light generated by a chemical reaction. But the glow is made to draw insects to them. Any insects that get too close to the light get trapped by the glowworms’ large sticky webs found in caves and overhangs where they reside in clusters.

Therefore caves, which are dark and moist, are the perfect hunting ground for glowworms, so they’re usually the best place to find glowworms in action. They may appear to look like worms, but they’re actually beetles or gnats.^[9]

1 Bottlenose dolphins

These sophisticated mammals are even more clever than the TV show ‘Flipper’ let on. The dolphins work as a team when hunting, but one of the strangest techniques they employ is by creating ‘mud nets’ which causes their prey, fish, to jump out of the water and into their waiting mouths.

A dolphin hits the ocean floor with its tails as it swims to stir up the mud on the sea bed and create plumes in the water, before swimming in a circle around a school to fish to create a whirlpooling ring of mud. As a result, the trapped fish try to escape the ring by jumping out of the water, where the dolphins have parked themselves with their mouths wide open awaiting their feed, as captured by BBC Earth.

Bottlenose dolphins have plenty of other hunting techniques including fish whacking and strand feeding, but their mud-ring feeding technique is a highly intelligent strategy.^[10]

Top 10 Surreal Animals That Really Exist

About The Author: I am a Media/Communications professional and long-time Australian freelance journalist, having written for global publications including AAP, Sunday Times, FourFourTwo and many more. Follow me on Twitter @BenSomerford

The death penalty is the ultimate punishment for criminals to suffer. Even though this method of correction has seen a drastic decline in use in modern times, back in the old days, it was an everyday thing to see someone executed by the authorities. Often, convicted criminals were tortured and killed in brutal ways to set an example for everyone to witness the consequences of living a life of crime.

Across the world, each and every country had creative ways of delivering capital punishment. Most of the time, the idea was to make the criminal suffer for as long as possible, while at other times, the chosen method had some symbolic meaning behind it. Nevertheless, criminals never suffered honorable deaths. In fact, their remains were often displayed for extra humiliation.

Here are ten of the most brutal and horrific methods of capital punishment from ancient times.

10 Lingchi (Slow Slicing)

Lingchi was a brutal method of execution used in China in which the victim would suffer a multitude of cuts before eventually dying of blood loss. Executioners were tasked with making as many cuts as possible and removing slices of flesh without killing the victim. It was also known as “death by a thousand cuts.” Lingchi started in the tenth century and was outlawed in 1905. Since it saw the beginning of the 20th century, it is one of the few execution methods on this list for which photos of it being practiced actually exist.

There wasn’t a specific process behind lingchi. The experience of it depended on several factors, such as the skill and mercy of the executioner and the seriousness of the crime committed. Some records recovered from the Ming dynasty suggest that victims suffered as many as 3,000 cuts before dying, while other reports claim that the whole ordeal took less than 15 minutes. Sometimes, the condemned would be given opium, but whether it was to make them suffer more or less is unclear. (It could have kept them conscious for longer.)^[1]Lingchi was one of the ultimate forms of the Five Punishments, which was a scale of punishment which increased in severity. It included a range of punitive measures, including amputation of the nose or feet, banishment, tattooing, and even castration.

9 Sawing

During medieval times in Europe, victims would be sawed to death for committing crimes like witchcraft, adultery, murder, blasphemy, and theft. The Roman Empire had a preference to saw victims in half horizontally, while the Chinese were more inventive by hanging their victims by their feet and sawing vertically down the body. This method was more effective in making victims suffer, because there would be better blood flow to the brain, prolonging consciousness.^[2]

According to historical documents from the Czech Hussite reform movement, their victims would first suffer getting their hands and feet sawed off before the wounds were cauterized by a torch. Only then would the victim be sawed in half. As for ancient Rome, Caligula was known to enjoy a meal while watching people being sawed, relishing in the victims’ suffering during the extreme punishment.

8 Execution By Elephant

Also known as gunga rao, this form of punishment was mostly used in Asia and India, although there has been some evidence of this method being used in the Western world on rare occasions. Execution by elephant has been a form of capital punishment in India since the Middle Ages.^[3] Victims would often be enemy soldiers or civilians who committed crimes like theft, tax evasion, and rebellion. Even though there was an abundance of animals that could be used for execution, elephants were utilized because of the fact that they could be trained to torture and kill criminals.

For example, an elephant could be commanded to crush a victim’s limbs before delivering the death blow to their head. Another example of execution by elephant was witnessed by Francois Bernier, a French traveler. In this method, the elephant was trained to slice criminals with blades that were fitted to their tusks.

7 Hanging, Drawing, And Quartering

According to English law, this would be the ultimate punishment for a man who has been convicted of high treason. Woman were burned at the stake instead for the sake of decency. Up until 1870, those who were convicted of high treason would be tied to a hurdle or sledge (similar to a piece of fencing made out of thin, interwoven branches) and dragged by a horse to the place of execution. Once there, the criminal would be hanged without a drop to ensure that their neck wouldn’t break. Before he died, the criminal would be cut down and have his genitals cut off and stomach slit open. The internal organs of the criminal would then be ripped out, and his body would be decapitated. Finally, the corpse would be divided into four quarters.

Often, the head and quarters of the criminal would be parboiled to prevent them from rotting and displayed on the city’s gates as a warning for everyone to witness. This sadistic method of execution first originated in 1241 to punish William Maurice, who had been convicted of piracy. The Treason Act of 1814 formally removed the disemboweling part of this method of execution and replaced it with hanging (now with a neck-breaking drop) and postmortem decapitation.^[4]

6 Gibbeting

In Scotland, this form of capital punishment was reserved mostly for convicted murderers. According to the Murder Act of 1752, the bodies of executed murderers would either be dissected or hung in chains. Gibbeting disappeared in practice by the late 1770s, even though it remained a legal penal option up until 1834. One reason why this kind of capital punishment started to decline is the fact that the body of a criminal would be displayed in local areas, which had some obvious drawbacks.

The best variation of this method of capital punishment is the conviction of Alexander Gillan. He was a farmer’s servant who was convicted of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl named Elspet Lamb in 1810. She was busy herding her father’s cattle when he attacked her mercilessly and beat her to death. The lord justice clerk of that time wanted to pass on a death sentence that would be considered an exemplary response to the magnitude of the crime, so he decided that Gillan would be executed on the very same spot the body of his victim was found and have his body hanged in chains to serve as a reminder of the consequences of murder.^[5]

5 Immurement

In this form of punishment, the convicted criminal would be placed within an enclosed space with no exits. Sometimes, this would translate into being imprisoned for life, while at other times, the victims would be condemned to die of starvation and dehydration. A photo which was first published in a 1922 issue of National Geographic depicted immurement in action, with a Mongolian woman trapped inside a wooden box in the desert. The photographer, Albert Kahn, witnessed how the woman would beg for food. He had to leave her in the box, because it would have been a huge breach of protocol for an anthropologist to intervene with another culture’s criminal justice system.^[6]

According to Kahn, the woman had been convicted of adultery. Even though there were doubts behind the story of why she was condemned to this fate, the photo has an indisputable authenticity. Victims did not always die of starvation. According to a newspaper report from 1914, sufferers of this fate in China were entombed in heavy iron-bound coffins which prohibited them from sitting upright or lying down. For only a few minutes a day, they’d be able to see sunlight as their food was thrown into their coffins through a small hole.

4 Poena Cullei

Also known as “punishment of the sack,” those who were found guilty of killing a parent (parracide) would be sewn up inside a leather sack along with an assortment of live animals and thrown into water. According to the the first documentation found mentioning poena cullei, only snakes would be thrown into the sack. Yet, around the time of Emperor Hadrian, the most popular variation of poena cullei was to throw a cock, a dog, a monkey, and a viper along with the criminal inside the sack.

During that time, those convicted of parracide had the choice of being thrown to the beasts in an arena or to suffer the fate of poena cullei. People sentenced to poena cullei were first whipped or beaten with blood-colored rods while their head was stuffed into a bag. After that, they would be thrown into a sack made of ox-leather along with other live animals and placed in a cart pulled by oxen to a running stream or the sea, into which they’d be thrown into. Eventually, poena cullei was replaced with being burned alive.^[7]

3 Scaphism

This was an ancient Persian method of torture reserved for those who committed serious crimes such as murder or treason. Criminals would be trapped in a hollowed-out tree trunk or between two boats (hence why this method was also called “the boats”) and force-fed milk and honey. This punishment had to take place in a swamp or someplace where the boats could lie exposed in the sun. Not only were they forced against their will to swallow the mixture, but it was also spread all over their exposed body parts. This would attract various kinds of insects as well as rats, which would basically eat the victim alive.

The victims of scaphism also suffered from severe diarrhea after a period of time that left them feeling weak and dehydrated. Yet, they didn’t die because of diarrhea-induced dehydration because they were constantly force-fed more milk and honey. This means that they could survive for days and even weeks in a small Hell of their own feces, milk, honey, and devouring insects. Eventually, the victim’s accumulating feces would breed a torrent of maggots and other vermin. Slowly, the they would make their way into the victim’s body and eat them up from the inside, finally bringing death.^[8]

2 The Breaking Wheel

Also known as the “Catherine wheel” because it’s associated with Saint Catherine of Alexandria, this brutal torture device was used during medieval times in Europe. It was popular in France and Germany, and in some instances, it was still in use even after medieval times. It earned the name “the breaking wheel” because it was specifically designed to break the bones of its victims. Men who were convicted of aggravated murder suffered this kind of capital punishment. The victim would be lashed to the wheel, and a club or iron cudgel was then used to beat his limbs. Once the victims succumbed to their injuries, the wheel could be used to display their bodies.

Sometimes, the victim would face days of torture on the wheel, while at other times, the executioner would deliver several blows to the chest and stomach (also known as the “coups de grace”) for a quicker death. The exact mechanism of the wheel used varied from country to country, and some variations of the torture device even included a wooden cross.^[9]

1 The Garrote

Execution by garrote were first introduced in 1812 as an alternative to hanging. At least 736 people were executed by garrote in Spain during the 19th century. Usually, those who were condemned to suffer this method of capital punishment were found guilty of crimes like murder, banditry, or major acts of terrorism. Prisoners would be seated with their backs against a post, and a rope loop which was also attached to the pole would then be placed around their necks. Executioners would then use a stick inserted into the loop of the rope to strangle them. There was also a Chinese variation of this execution method involving the use of bowstring.^[10]

Over time, several improvements were made to ensure that those who were condemned to die by the garrote would be killed in a more humane way. The whole method of garroting changed to accommodate a wooden stool, with restraints for the hands and feet as well as a hinged iron collar to be closed around the neck. Along with the wooden stool came a screw/lever mechanism with a star-shaped blade attached to it. This would then be used to enter the prisoner’s neck and sever the spinal column, effectively preventing the prisoner from strangling to death. Even though the victim usually lost consciousness quickly and died after a few minutes, it was never a guaranteed outcome. This led to the conclusion that this method of execution was never quicker or more humane than hanging.

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Warfare has been around for a very long time. As ancient mass graves have shown us, interactions between various groups of human beings haven’t always been peachy—if anything, they’ve often been nothing shy of horrific. And sometimes, horrific is actually the point of some forms of warfare, tactics intended to intimidate and scare the other side. Such is the nature of psychological warfare, and it, too, has been around since humanity’s inception, beginning way back in prehistoric times when the first group of Paleolithic men decided to scream before charging an enemy in an attempt to startle and cause a deep, primal fear within their opponents before they struck.

Psychological warfare is a blend of propaganda and actual tactics that can create a firestorm of terror in the mind of the enemy, long before the first arrow is shot or the first bomb is dropped. Carl von Clausewitz remarked in his work On War that the goal of warfare is to disarm the enemy and make them submit to the will of those conducting the war.^[1] Sometimes, through the use of psychological warfare, this can happen easily, without a fight. Long before the use of newspapers and digital media, cultures had to conduct psychological warfare using more organic and rudimentary tools, the only things that they had at their disposal at the time. Here are ten brutal methods of psychological warfare from the ancient world.

10 Occupation

Alexander the Great employed psychological warfare in ways that were quite novel at the time, and the results were outstanding, as the massive empire he forged shows us. What most people think about when they think of psychological warfare is purely intimidation, but as von Clausewitz said, all warfare is political.

Alexander used a new tactic that he invented to expand his empire, one the Romans would later use as they became a powerful military force, and that tactic contained a beautiful mixture of friendly alliances and intimidation. See, before Alexander, military leaders would march through a city, plunder the goods, often execute the men and keep the women, and then burn it to the ground. Alexander changed this by leaving a certain amount of his troops and forces behind, leaving the cities standing, and making friends with the social elites of each conquered culture so that those defeated foes could then adopt Greek culture and become assimilated into the empire.^[2]

The tactic relied on political genius, mutual friendliness, and, of course, the implied threat of having a very powerful group of soldiers occupying your hometown that could smother any dissent that came about. Alexander’s brutal method was occupation, and while it was sometimes friendly on the surface, imagine the soldiers of a foreign nation standing on your street corners, in your homes, forcing you to adopt their ways at the threat of killing you. This tactic wasn’t all nice—it was more deeply psychologically disturbing.

9 Timing

Cyrus the Great was a military leader and conqueror who would rise to become the leader of the Achaemenian (or Achaemenid) Empire, also known today as the Persian Empire. Initially, Cyrus conquered many local cities in the area of modern-day Iran, and then he set his sights on a bigger prize—the city of Babylon—and he successfully took it by employing psychological warfare. Cyrus showed through psychological warfare that if you show up at just the right time, you can win a war and claim a city with a minimal fight.

Cyrus waited until things were ripe in Babylon, an ancient city with very powerful and respected priests, who the nation’s leader, Nabonidus, had seriously pissed off right before Cyrus showed up.^[3] The Babylonians had come to believe that their leader had disowned their major god, Marduk. The priests of the Babylonian religion saw this as a major transgression, and to top all of this off, Nabonidus had been on a military conquest for 11 years, hoping to control and dominate trade routes in the area. It seems he’d been gone for so long that his own people began to dislike him, though he’d left his son in his place to hold down the fort. Cyrus not only capitalized on this but had instigated it all along, sending representatives into the city to slowly spread propaganda until the people were totally fed up with their king. This process took years.

When the timing was right, Cyrus showed up and won over the already angry, elite class of the priests of Babylon and turned them against their leader. He was also able to make nearby armies who had sworn alliances to Babylon defect and join the fight against Nabonidus. Together, these smaller towns helped Cyrus in his campaign as his Persian army rolled through the ancient city.

8 Political Clout

When it comes to a shining, lovable, political image put forth by a political and/or military leader, very few, if any, people in history come close to the political savvy displayed by Julius Caesar. From the First Triumvirate to the treatment of the Gallic tribes north of Rome at the time, Caesar was a master manipulator in the name of furthering his political and military aspirations.^[4]

The Celtic warriors of Gaul had conquered the city of Rome after laying siege to it in 390 BC. Now, in 58 BC, Caesar wanted payback after centuries of skirmishes between the loose-knit band of ethnically and culturally similar tribes that composed the unofficial nation of Gaul, and he got it by starting with a smile. Initially, Caesar was trying to attack a nearby resource-rich nation and not actually Gaul, though Gaul was always on the back burner. At first, Caesar took it upon himself to go make friends with the Gallic tribes in the area. He became well-liked among the local tribes and was welcome in the area. But little did the Gauls know that Caesar was planning on totally dominating the unofficial nation at a later point.

By 52 BC, the Gauls had grown weary of Caesar, and a lot of the tribes turned against Rome, eventually culminating in an attack by the Belgian Gauls from the north, who would consolidate Gallic military might and lead a charge against the expanding Rome. But Caesar had already been perfecting his strategy for years—his plan was laid out, and his Roman legions crushed the Gauls and pushed them far back into the territories of Northern and Western Europe.

7 Impalement

It’s quite obvious how a mass of impaled human bodies might intimidate and dissuade an invading army, making it reconsider its effort in your territory. Even if it did not, it would serve to strike fear into the hearts of the combatants who sought to conquer your land and take your riches. Thousands of years before Vlad the Impaler came on the scene, there was Assyria. Assyria was unanimously agreed upon as a violent culture, something that’s even mentioned in the Holy Bible.

Ancient depictions show us that the Assyrians not only used to impale people like Vlad did, but they took it a step further by stabbing the stake through the victim’s abdomen.^[5] All this would leave a grisly and horrifying sight for any passersby who might have considered taking on the ancient Assyrians. This no doubt terrified both criminals and foreign armies alike.

6 Gifts Of Flesh

When it comes to psychological warfare in the form of sheer brutality, impalement wasn’t the only thing the ancient Assyrians turned to—they had other methods of scaring the life out of their neighbors. Ashurbanipal was the king of Assyria from 668 to 627 BC, and he was apparently quite gifted intellectually. Ashurbanipal would use his intellect sometimes for torturous ploys which would turn out to be genius military strategies.

See, Ashurbanipal seemed to take tremendous joy in removing the flesh of his victims and rivals, but he did this for a calculated reason—to terrify others. He is quoted as saying, “I will hack up the flesh and then carry it with me, to show off in other countries.”^[6] Can you imagine the looks on the faces of today’s leaders if one nation’s highest chief met with another toting a bag of well-preserved flesh which had been systematically carved off his enemies? Needless to say, the message was loud and clear.

5 Flaying And Staking

Another notable tactic of highly intimidating psychological warfare from ancient Assyria, the real ancient kings of brutality, was called flaying and staking. Flaying and staking is mentioned in the Holy Bible, and other surviving works depict this gruesome process, which was a horrific style of execution in the name of intimidation. It began with flaying the offender, usually a provincial governor of a conquered territory who refused to bow to the mighty Assyrian rule. The Assyrians would skin the person alive but not quite until death, just enough to make them suffer and to gather enough skin to place around the walls of wherever they were in order to scare off any rival armies.

Staking was similar to impalement, but the executioner would slowly shove the stake up through the anus of the condemned, taking great care to only move the vital organs aside so as to not kill the offender.^[7] Then, in traditional impalement-like fashion, they would sometimes hoist the stake up by burying the butt end of it into the ground to put on display before their cities. The reason for the tedious process was to keep the person alive as long as possible, and sometimes, these poor condemned persons would live for several days on end.

4 Crucifixion

Crucifixion could almost be likened to cultures erecting skyscrapers of their enemies, both living and dead, to stand tall and tower, terrifying their enemies and potential adversaries—such a sight of a group of crucified, helpless victims would be enough to make anyone reconsider a challenge to the people doing the crucifying. Crucifixion was actually pretty widespread throughout the ancient world. The Persians, the Carthaginians, and other cultures practiced it as both a military and criminal deterrent.

There were many different methods of crucifixion to terrify an enemy with, and some cultures used various versions of the practice over time. In Rome, for instance, nails weren’t always driven through the intended victim, so as to prolong the suffering in the air rather than risk the offender bleeding to death.^[8] In these cases, the victim would be simply tied to the cross or T-shaped wooden crucifix. Then the bones would be bent and misshaped and often broken to increase suffering, and the victim would be erected into the air for all to see. Many people died slowly as birds ate their flesh over a series of days.

Nails were also employed in various ways. Sometimes, the victim would have their legs bent around the sides of the wooden log, and then the nail would be driven through the side to fasten the legs in a much more uncomfortable position than the one we’re most familiar with. When nails were used on the upper body and driven through the arms, the weight of the body would cause the shoulders and other bones to break or dislocate, further adding to the pain of the condemned. This definitely scared away many of far-off armies who may have sent a traveler abroad and also made occupied cultures think twice about an insurrection.

3 Siege

Siege warfare relied on extremely powerful psychological tactics to force the enemy into submission. Siege warfare still remains a potent tool in the military commander’s toolbox that is often dug out even today. A war of attrition is where the forces of one military attempt to wear down the forces and supplies of another army and has long been a very powerful weapon, trading a quick conquest for the slow and certain collapse of decay. The side with the greatest access to resources over time intentionally prolongs the war to wear down the other side’s supplies.

Laying siege to a city often meant surrounding it in the form of a blockade, to cut off all supplies inbound and outbound, and then simply waiting . . . slowly waiting . . . for the enemy within the city limits to burn through all of their available resources, such as food and fresh water.^[9] As people began to slowly starve and resemble skeletons, they more often than not became much more willing to negotiate a peaceful solution, and if they wanted to fight, their weakened, starved armies didn’t pose a very serious threat. In the most extreme of cases, cities under siege often turned to cannibalism as a last resort if their leaders refused to concede to the army surrounding them. The psychological effects of such tactics are as obvious as they are terrifying.

From beginning to end, the Romans were the masters of siege warfare in ancient times, starting with the Siege of Veii, a city which belonged to their culturally similar yet long-rivaled neighbors to the north, the Etruscans. After being beaten in many fights, the infant Roman nation fortified their army and moved to lay siege to Veii in 405 BC. They successfully implemented a long siege but were pushed back in 402 BC by reinforcements and continued their stronghold nearby. It should be noted here that siege warfare back then took a long time—a very long time. In 396 BC, after years of siege, the Romans devised a plan to take the weakened city and dug under the walls that surrounded it and took it from within. This was the beginning of many Roman sieges laid upon the ancient world, with devastating results for anyone and everyone on the receiving end.

2 The Helepolis

And then there came the Helepolis—the taker of cities. This ancient marvel was a terrifying sight to behold, a massive, mobile tower that could effectively take any city by giving the persons on board a higher vantage point from which to fight downward while they climbed over the walls of the enemies they fought. This mobile skyscraper would be rolled into battle on its eight wheels by hand, pushed slowly and intently toward the enemy.

Imagine that it’s the fourth century BC, and suddenly, approaching upon the horizon, you see the largest chariot you’ve ever seen, the size of a modern-day high-rise building, slowly creeping toward you as you hold out at your fortification. The terrifying sight must have been an absolute nightmare to behold, as those on the receiving end of the slow-moving Helepolis knew their city walls that they’d relied on their entire lives were absolutely useless.

The Greeks made more than one siege tower over the years, but the Helepolis was the grandest of all, with an iron exterior that couldn’t be set on fire like other siege towers, but it ultimately proved a failure in the Siege of Rhodes in 305 BC.^[10] At 40 meters (130 ft) tall and 20 meters (65 ft) wide, the Helepolis was a behemoth, but as it approached Rhodes, the people inside the city had a genius idea. Using the cover of night, they built a large pool of mud and sewage near where they thought the Helepolis was likely to make its assault—and they were exactly right. The massive machine ended up becoming stuck and was eventually abandoned.

1 The Brazen Bull

The brazen bull was a torture device used in ancient Greece. (Note that some historians believe its existence was a tall tale; others say there is sufficient evidence that it was real.) The ancient Greeks didn’t often venture into the outside world to conquer aside from Alexander the Great, a period of unification, as the various city-states were typically fighting among themselves. The brazen bull was developed in the sixth century BC for the ruler Phalaris as a method for executing criminals, all while sending a clear and tyrannical signal to any would-be rivals.

Perillos of Athens was the man who invented it, creating a brass bull that had a striking resemblance to the real thing.^[11] This brass bull was hollow on the inside, with an opening in the side of it that could be shut and locked from the outside. The carved out nostrils and mouth were the only ventilation from the inside of the bull. After someone was convicted and condemned, they would be placed inside the bull, and a fire would be set beneath it. Because metal transmits heat quite well, the brass would heat up and cook the person inside alive. The screams and cries of the condemned surely sent a clear message—don’t mess with Phalaris.

In a stunning betrayal, when Perillos of Athens presented the brazen bull to Phalaris, the king decided that Perillos would be the very first man that the bull would be tested on. Perillos was placed inside the bull but was taken out before he died. This wasn’t a reprieve, though; Phalaris is said to have then thrown Perillos off a hill. In the end, however, the people of Athens, who had long been subjected to Phalaris’s cruelty, became tired of the tyrannical ruler and turned against him, killing him with nothing other than the brazen bull.

I like to write about the dark, the deranged, the twisted, history, true crime, and macabre stuff.

The machine of progress can’t be stopped, but it does need to be tempered. You can’t go about innovating all willy nilly without testing your ideas. Whether it’s something as simple as a new recipe for brownies or as complex as quantum computing, we live in a world where everything needs to be (or at least should be) tested to perfect it. 

When it comes to that brownie, testing it isn’t a hard process to figure out. Have a bite and see how it tastes. But there are some more unusual tests we’ve devised for very specific reasons and, weird though they me, they do stand up to scientific scrutiny.

10. Butt Shaped Robots Test Cell Phone Durability

About 67% of the people on Earth have cell phones, or somewhere north of 6 billion. Of those many billions of people, how many do you think stuff their phone in their back pocket when not using it? In one small poll of just under 3,000 people, about 7.8% kept their phone back there. Out of 6 billion, that would be 468 million. That’s a lot of phones against butts. And that’s why cell phone testing involves robot butts.

Part of the testing Samsung puts its new phones through to ensure durability involves being slipped into the back pocket of jeans worn by robot butts so the robots can sit down again and again and again to see how well the phones handle it. 

That means, theoretically, you shouldn’t have to worry too much if you sit on your Samsung phone because a robot tried it out once already and survived. Unless you sit more aggressively than a robot. 

9. Boeing Tests Wi-Fi on Planes with Potatoes

Pre-Covid there were close to 40 million flights per year around the world. The pandemic brought those numbers down considerably but they are creeping up again and, in any event, it’s safe to say there are a ton of planes in the air on any given day. With so many planes, and people, in the sky, you have to have faith that every aspect of a flight is very rigidly and scientifically tested to ensure maximum safety. And that brings us to potatoes.

Boeing used potatoes as part of the system it devised to test Wi-Fi on its airplanes. About 20,000 lb of them, in fact. The company needed to make sure that a plane, flying at hundreds of miles an hour, 35,000 feet in the air could distribute Wi-Fi evenly among passengers. And yeah, you could get real humans for this job but they need to be paid and to have breaks and all kinds of things. Potatoes, however, do not.

It turns out that potatoes interact with signals, such as Wi-Fi, in much the same way as a human body would. So plopping a sack of spuds in a seat is an easy way to see if the signal strength is dispersed evenly on a loaded plane. 

8. Some Cities Test Their Water Supplies with Clams

Access to clean water is something a lot of people take for granted in parts of the developed world and when the infrastructure that provides it fails, it can be devastating. What many people don’t ever stop to look into is how that water is cleaned in the first place. There’s more than one method available and some places have opted for the unexpected method of using clams.

In parts of Poland, clams provide a reliable early warning system that something is wrong with the water. Clams are extremely sensitive to toxins and pollutants in the water. So clams are placed at a certain place in the water supply and monitored with tiny magnets and coils. If the water flow becomes polluted, say there’s an overabundance of heavy metals in it, the clams immediately close up to protect themselves. The coils and magnets create an observable change in the magnetic field to let scientists monitoring the water know something has happened. 

In America, the same system is being used in cities like Minneapolis. There, mussels have been added to the water supply and the same theory works. When pollutants are detected, the molluscs set off the early warning. They’re so good at this, polluted water can be detected before it ever reaches household water supplies. 

7. A Caloric Stimulation Test Can Help Detect Brain Damage

Brain damage can manifest in numerous ways and can range from the smallest tics to completely life changing alterations in personality or physical abilities. It can also be caused by anything from physical trauma to oxygen deprivation to parasites and more. So how do you even begin to test for something so complicated?

One common method is called the caloric stimulation test. The test is used to measure nerve function and although brain damage isn’t the only thing it can indicate, it’s definitely a test that can help make that diagnosis.

The way it works is remarkably non-invasive. A patient will have electrodes attached to their head near their eyes. Then cold water dripped into their ear. This is then followed by warm water. Eye movement needs to be monitored as the test is implemented. When cold water fills your ear, nerve signals will make your eyes move quickly side to side and away from the cold ear. The warm water will cause the eyes to move back. If your nerves are working properly, this is entirely unconscious movement.

If the results are abnormal, meaning eye movement isn’t what’s expected, further testing can be done to narrow down the cause. 

6. Mice Are Forced to Swim to Test Antidepressants

Over 70 million antidepressants are prescribed every year, so it’s safe to say a lot of people are taking medications that are altering how their brains function. We’ve all likely heard of serious and negative drug side effects so it’s good to know how companies actually test these drugs to ensure they do what they’re supposed to do. 

Before human trials begin with most drugs, animals are tested and antidepressants are no different. But how do you test for depression or the lack thereof in animals? With the forced swim test. Sometimes known as the behavioral despair test.

In this test, a mouse is placed in a container full of water from which they can’t escape. All they can do is swim. The mice are then observed to see how long they will spend trying to swim until they give up. Mice are given antidepressants and the time they spend immobile is measured. So, in a nutshell, an antidepressant is considered effective if it lessens the amount of time a mouse spends immobile. So the longer it can convince a mouse to try to save itself from drowning, the more effective it is. 

5. Horseshoe Crab Blood is Used to Test for Bacteria in Vaccines 

There’s a good chance that if you have been vaccinated against anything in the modern world, you owe a small debt of gratitude to the noble horseshoe crab that probably died as a result. These extremely ancient creatures have some unique blood. Not only is it bright blue, it’s invaluable in medical testing. Well, not literally invaluable. It costs about $60,000 a gallon.

These creatures have remained relatively unchanged for about 450 million years. And the reason their blood is so valuable is that it coagulates when exposed to certain toxins. That clotting feature is incredibly important in medical testing, like for vaccines, because it allows scientists to know if a sample has been contaminated. If the compound coagulates, then they know something went wrong. If it doesn’t, then the sample is pure so they can trust their results. This is integral for ensuring a valid vaccine or other medical treatment. 

Unfortunately for the crabs, this means they need to be harvested and bled en masse. The goal is to only take some blood, about 30%, and leave the crabs with enough to survive, but often they will die as a result of the procedure, anyway. 

4. The US Air Force Tested Ejector Seats on Live Bears

Any good action movie about Air Force pilots probably includes a scene with an adrenaline-pumping high speed emergency ejection. Ever wondered how they make sure those seats work? Back in the day they tested them with bears.

In 1950, when testing ejector seats in a jet that could go twice the speed of sound, the Air Force decided a drugged up bear was the best test subject. They used American and Himalayan black bears and all of the subjects survived the initial testing only to be dissected later.

Bears were actually a second choice for these tests. The first idea was hiring subjects out of unemployment lines. The animals became a better choice probably for a number of reasons but not the least of which was that they could immediately kill and autopsy them to look for internal injuries. Although it seems like the testing worked, they thankfully stopped the practice not long after.

3. Jets are Tested with a Chicken Cannon 

Let’s say you’re on an airplane going across the country. The plane is climbing to altitude and runs into a flock of geese. How scared are you about what happens next? Because birds have downed planes before and people have died. So what does the aviation industry do to try to prepare for this?

Turns out the best way to test how a plane handles hitting birds is to hit it with birds. Jets are tested with cannons that fire chickens at them to see if the windshields and engines can handle the impact. Contrary to some rumors the chickens aren’t frozen, but it’s otherwise a true story. A chicken will be fired into a turbine at 180 miles per hour. For military aircraft it can get up to 400 miles per hour. 

The first chicken cannon saw use back in 1968 and lasted until 2009 when it was replaced. It uses simple compressed air to fire an already killed chicken to test the planes.

2. An AI System is Being Designed to Diagnose Diseases Based on Toilet Sounds

In 2018, about 9.5 million people died from cancer. Year over year it claims more and more victims and while there are great strides in treatments and research, it’s obviously still taking a huge toll. Any technology that can assist in fighting, preventing or diagnosing can save lives. And now there’s a new advance in the fight that utilizes AI and the sounds you make on the toilet to hopefully catch early signs.

The technology is mostly theoretical at the moment with only a prototype having been developed, but the idea is it could listen to your various sounds and detect subtle variations or discrepancies that may indicate your insides are not working exactly as they are supposed to. The AI is sophisticated enough to pull out sounds that a human ear could never detect.

So what do you call a computer that listens to farts and other toilet noises for the betterment of mankind? Synthetic Human Acoustic Reproduction Testing. Or SHART. In 2022 they were working on an algorithm to help SHART detect cholera. 

1. Google Nexus Tested If Sound Can Be Heard in Space

The movie Alien used the tagline “in space no one can hear you scream” and it really set a great tone for the film while also being scientifically accurate. Sound does not travel well in a vacuum. But hey, that doesn’t mean Google wasn’t willing to scientifically test the idea, anyway. 

The Strand-1 satellite was launched in 2013, operated by a Google Nexus smartphone and a CubeSat computer. The operators decided to test that Alien theory by launching a Nexus phone into space with it to test its durability and also how well some recorded screams play in the void. 

Mostly this was just a silly PR stunt because launching satellites is generally mundane stuff these days but, for what it’s worth, the screams were unheard because the physics of space don’t allow sound to travel thanks to a lack of molecules to carry it.

The idea of using contraceptives is as old as time. Due to the advanced medicine of today, we have many forms available to suit anyone’s needs, but this wasn’t always the case. From stealthy pessaries to handcrafted condoms, the birth control devices of old range from ineffective to bizarre.

The first birth control clinic in the US was opened in 1916 in New York City by Margaret Sanger, an advocate for the right to contraceptive use.^[1] The approval of such offices appears to have been controversial even back then, as the first one had a difficult time finding doctors and was quickly shut down after its initial opening. Still, professionals carried on with their work in the pursuit to find and refine contraceptive methods. Their efforts have transformed into the popular techniques we now use today.

While it is difficult to find surviving contraceptive devices of old due to most of the materials being small and made of biodegradable substances, a glance at record books and historical populations gives hints to the fact that some form or other of birth control was most likely in use among different cultures throughout the course of history.

10 Breastfeeding

It is common knowledge that ovulating women can get pregnant unless they are using some form of contraceptive. This cycle can be affected by stress, fluctuating hormones, poor diet choices, and other medical conditions, though. When women do not menstruate for three months or more, it is then considered abnormal and called amenorrhea. The state when a monthly cycle is interrupted is not always a cause for concern and can even occur naturally.

One natural event that results in a woman not ovulating is pregnancy. A lesser-known fact is that if a woman nurses a young baby of fewer than six months old, there is a reaction within the brain from the suckling process that can stop her body from releasing an egg. The process ensures she is not able to become pregnant while still caring for a newborn. To take advantage of this natural period of infertility and utilize it as a form of birth control, a woman can continue to breastfeed her baby at regular intervals using the Lactation Amenorrhea Method, or LAM.

In ancient times, LAM was not only well-known but commonly practiced. Purposefully or not, a woman would sometimes maintain the breastfeeding cycle for up to three years to keep from becoming pregnant. The natural use of this technique particularly kept nomadic families to relatively small sizes, making it easier to maintain their roaming lifestyle.^[2]

9 Animal Intestines And Fish Membranes

The use of condoms is not new, though it is difficult to nail down exactly when they first became popular because the materials used were biodegradable and often did not survive the wear of time. It was realized early on, though, that a protective covering could help prevent pregnancy, and over the years, multiple forms were tested. Animal materials won the prize and were widely regarded as the most effective and readily available. Interestingly enough, though, the condom was used more frequently to protect against venereal diseases instead of pregnancy, as conditions such as syphilis were common and widespread. A well known tenth-century Persian physician, Al-Akhawayni Bukhari, would even recommend a gallbladder to his patients as protection against illness.

When the use of condoms became more popular, pharmacies began to regularly stock certain brands and styles. One of the common brands was the “goldbeater.” Made of animal intestines, the thin material was originally developed for use in processing gold leaf, hence its given name. However, the finely pounded skin was also found to be perfect for use as a condom because it was reasonably waterproof and flexible and had great durability.

While all of these materials worked well and were readily accessible, a fish membrane, specifically the swim bladder, became the condom of choice for its superior quality and protection against pregnancy and syphilis.^[3]

8 Silphium And Related Flora

Silphium is a now-extinct plant due to its popular use as a natural contraceptive in the ancient world. Thought to be related to the fennel family, the plant grew in the area of what is now modern-day Libya and was cultivated for its resin. Because of its extreme effectiveness and desirability, images of the flora even appeared on the currency of the civilization where it was most popular.

Unfortunately, the plant was quickly used up, and the exact family to which silphium belonged is still uncertain, though it has been speculated to perhaps still be in existence as a misidentified flower. Interestingly, the seed of the silphium plant is depicted as being heart-shaped, leading a few to believe that the plant may have become the modern-day symbol of love.^[4]

Another couple of plants known to cause abortions and infertility are pennyroyal and Queen Anne’s lace. The oil and seeds of these weeds are used in some medicines, cooking applications, and herbal remedies. The danger in the use of pennyroyal, though, is that the amount needed to cause an abortion can also cause kidney and liver damage. Queen Anne’s lace is a little bit safer if you know what you’re doing but is also technically classified as a poisonous plant.

Another problem with these supplements is that they can easily be confused with different and more deadly versions. Despite the foreboding issues, both types are still used by herbalists and in poor communities.

7 Lysol Douches

A douche is known today as a feminine hygiene product, but it was also widely thought to be usable as a method of contraception when first introduced. As a douche is used to “wash out” the inside of the vagina, the idea was that sperm, too, would be rinsed out after coition. In fact, the idea is completely backward and could actually help push material up into the uterus and assist with pregnancy.

Another issue with douching as a method of contraception is that the water used inside a douche used to be mixed with disinfectants like Lysol.^[5] This was considered the same as using spermicides; however, regular washing changes the chemical composition of the inner vaginal walls. As this part of the body is naturally a hostile environment for sperm, the process most likely left ladies’ insides more vulnerable to diseases and pregnancy than before the wash.

6 Plant Resin And Animal Feces

A tried and true natural spermicide can be made from a paste of acacia tree gum and honey. Acacia ferments and produces lactic acid, which will kill sperm if they come into contact with it.

The mixture was soaked in cotton and placed into the vagina in ancient Egypt, but this wasn’t the only natural spermicide that was popularly used.^[6] Everything from crocodile to elephant dung has been rumored to work and were also utilized often throughout parts of Asia.

5 Rythmeter

During the early years of the 1900s, birth control was more controversial than ever. On the one hand, there was an entire church following completely against contraceptives, and on the other, people were realizing that a substantial financial burden could be avoided merely by having fewer children. For this reason, scientists were looking closely into the science of contraception and exactly when a woman was and wasn’t fertile.^[7]

The problem was that most doctors studied animals and assumed women’s systems were the same; they soon found this not to be true. Upon the realization that doctors had been basing their observations off inaccurate subjects, scientists began delving further into the mystery of a woman’s fertile period. From these studies, a technical device known as a “Rythmeter” developed.

The complicated-looking wheel was meant for a woman to use as a calendar of her menstrual cycle and was supposed to help calculate when she was in a safe “rhythm” of infertility. Unfortunately, every body is different, and a lot of outside factors can come into play when trying to calculate virility. Although it was popular, compared to actual contraceptive devices like condoms, it was by far not the most effective.

4 Cervical Caps

The cervical cap has been around for centuries and only fell out of popularity recently because condoms and the pill became more widespread. However, it is making a comeback as a formidable means of birth control.

Usually used with another spermicide, the cervical cap is smaller than a diaphragm and creates a barrier around the cervix that sperm cannot get through. Through the centuries, such devices have been produced, even en masse, in the form of leather, metal, and plastic. One of the most famously creative ones, though, may have come from the notes of Giacomo Casanova.

Casanova, one of the more prominent historical figures known for his charm, noted in his memoirs the use of half a lemon as a cervical cap. Accompanying this with either a goat bladder or linen condom was one of his tried and true methods to prevent pregnancy. The acidity of the lemon most likely acted as a natural spermicide and probably accomplished its task relatively well.^[8]

3 Electrocautery

For years, multiple types of sterilization techniques have been tested in the medical world in an attempt to limit populations and to prevent those with medical issues from getting pregnant. Today, tube tying is particularly common for women, especially after having children, as a way to prevent a family from growing any larger. The primary benefit of this method is that it can often be undone, but this was not always the case.

One technique that was often endeavored and used in the late 1800s was that of electrocautery.^[9] Cauterization by the use of running electricity through metal rods was not uncommon, and it only made sense that this could be performed on the fallopian tubes. Using electrodes to seal off the pathways was meant to prevent eggs from becoming fertilized.

The technique was not necessarily known for being successful and caused more concern for safety than anything. However, it was popularly attempted for decades.

2 Rue, Pepper, And Pomegranate Seeds

Muslim scholar Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi suggested a mixture of rue juice and pepper to be taken as the historical equivalent of a morning after pill. The herbal concoction was supposed to induce abortions, but the efficacy is up for questioning.^[10]

The Greeks, on the other hand, believed pomegranate seeds would reduce fertility, and it has been scientifically shown that rats that are fed the fruit do become less fertile.

1 Lead And Mercury

Perhaps the most truly dangerous contraceptive was seen in ancient China. Women in imperial times would intentionally drink metals such as mercury and lead to ensure that they didn’t become pregnant.^[11]

Today, we know that such substances would not only render you infertile but also make you extremely sick or crazy, result in organ failure, or cause other permanent damage. Unfortunately, the practice was relatively effective at preventing pregnancy and is known to have been in widespread use throughout the course of history.

A freelance writer of content and copy living the dream of a digital nomad. Learning skills and exploring new places is my favorite hobby.

Whether we love it or not, the dominant form of government across the world today is the representative democracy, in which the citizens elect representatives who then use their voice in government on their constituents’ behalf. Representative democracy is found across the world and is broadly similar from country to country. Whether we live in Japan, the UK, or the US, elections and government work in much the same way.

But in the past, many wildly different government types existed side by side for centuries—and some were unimaginably different compared to the way politics work in the West today. Here are ten of the strangest forms of government in history.

10 Carthage

At its height, Carthage was a rival to the early Roman Empire and the dominant maritime power of the ancient world, controlling trade throughout most of the Mediterranean. Carthage was originally settled by Phoenician colonists from modern-day Jordan, but unlike the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians turned their back on monarchy and became a republic in the seventh century BC.^[1]

The heads of state were the two suffetes who, much like the consular system in Rome, were elected for a 12-month term and held equal power to each other. Beneath them was a senate of around 200 to 300 people who, when selected, served for life. Unfortunately, the way they were selected is lost to history.

We do know, however, that the senate played an important role in Carthaginian government, with groups of senators being commissioned to manage aspects of the government, such as maintaining religious sites or collecting taxes. The senate also had to be consulted by the suffetes on matters relating to the state. The senate would vote on the issue, and if their decision disagreed with the two suffetes, or if the two suffetes disagreed with each other, the matter would be settled by the people’s assembly.

The people’s assembly met in the market square in Carthage itself, and any male of the city could vote. Since voting was open to any citizen who turned up (only males could be citizens), the size of the assembly would have varied wildly. The people’s assembly also seems to have directly elected the two suffetes, meaning that the people had a large say in how they were governed in ancient Carthage. Unfortunately, though, it meant that people from elsewhere in the Carthaginian Empire had no say over how they were governed; this might have been why, when Rome eventually conquered Carthage, the rest of the empire felt little desire to avenge them.

9 Iceland

When Iceland was settled by the Vikings around 850, it was too far away from a center of authority for any king to really control it. The result was a medieval Viking republic, governed by the Althing from around 930, making it the oldest continuously functioning parliament in the world.^[2]

By 930, the population of Iceland had grown to the point where many people decided they needed a way to organize their own laws and attitudes toward people from outside Norway. From around then, for two weeks in June every year (the best time for traveling), the Althing met at Thingvellir to discuss matters of law. The country was split into 36 chieftaincies, each of which sent a chieftain and two advisers to the Althing. Chieftains—called gothis—were nominated by the people who lived in their chieftaincy, so they were usually the best-connected and most well-liked person in their region.

The Althing was directed by the lawspeaker, a chieftain who was chosen by the other chieftains to serve for three years. The lawspeaker was effectively the living constitution of Iceland, and he and his advisers were expected to know all the laws of Iceland by heart. He would start the Althing by reciting the laws from memory and then would help to facilitate debate between the chieftains by helping them resolve matters through the law or create new laws if they were needed. He held no more power than another chieftain, though, and Iceland had no single head of state.

The Althing was more than a meeting of politicians, though—hundreds of people from across Iceland would travel to the Althing to trade, party, catch up with old friends, and make or break family alliances or agreements, such as arranged marriages or fosterships.

8 Venice

One of the longest-lived republics in European history, the Venetians first elected a doge to lead them in 727 and were governed by elected officials until the city’s conquest in 1797, over 1,000 years later.^[3]

The Venetian system was so robust because it had lots of different moving parts, each wielding different amounts of power and having some level of influence over the others—a concept integral to modern democracy. The doge was the head of the system, appointed for life and the de facto ruler of Venice. Despite this, his power was restricted in many ways: The doge was unable to name his successor or even a preferred successor (to prevent certain families from dominating the position), he was banned from leaving Venice, and all his mail was read by an independently elected censor who reported to the public.

The systems that made up the Venetian government changed over time, but the most important were the Collegio, a council of 40 men from the elite families, the senate, which managed finances and diplomacy, the Council of Three, who monitored the other branches, and the grand chancellor, who ran the city’s bureaucracy. All these officials were chosen by and from the members of the Great Council, which consisted of 1,000 people who were all chosen from a list of 180 great families—making Venice an oligarchy, not a true democracy. To complicate matters further, some people were allowed to be members of several government bodies at the same time.

Nothing sums up the crazy Venetian system better than the way they elected the doge : First, 30 members of the Great Council were chosen at random and then reduced at random to nine. These nine chose 40 more Great Council members, who were reduced at random to 12. These 12 chose 25, who were reduced to nine. These nine then elected 45 members, who were reduced to 11, and these 11 chose the 41 who elected the doge by majority vote. The final number was originally 40 but was increased to 41 after a tie in 1229.

Venice’s masterminded system was ultimately toppled by the introduction of the Council of Ten around 1310. Originally designed to monitor the other bodies and prevent them from taking too much power, it seized more and more power for itself over time and even had its own secret police force. By 1600, Venice had effectively become a dictatorship.

7 Florence

At the end of the 1200s, many Northern Italian cities rejected the rule of wealthy nobles and instead turned to the rule of the popolo, and Florence was no different.^[4] In 1293, the city enacted the Ordinances of Justice, which blocked the 152 noble families of the city from holding political office. From then on, the people would rule.

Of course, it wasn’t quite so simple. Though government was no longer restricted to the nobility, to be part of the popolo, a citizen had to be a member of one of the seven major guilds of the city (the judges, cloth traders, moneylenders, silk traders, doctors, wool traders, and fur traders); the members of the five minor guilds (the butchers, shoemakers, smiths, masons, and secondhand traders) also had a lesser status in the popolo.

Together, they elected the Signoria, who served a term of just two months and were the highest authority in the city. The Signoria was led by the gonfalionere, a member of the Signoria who was chosen at random. The Signoria met every day in the Palazzo della Signoria (today known as the Palazzo Vecchio), where they discussed government matters and decided on legislation to introduce, which would then have to be passed by the Twelve Good Men.

The two-month term limit led to an acute interest in politics and much factional infighting, mainly because power was always within grasp for any aspiring politician. For most of the republic’s history, politics was dominated by antagonism (and sometimes outright civil wars) between the Guelphs, who supported the pope, and the Ghibellines, who supported the German emperor. The gonfalionere’s term limit was extended to life in 1498, after which Florence was dominated by the rule of the Medici family, who eventually made themselves the hereditary rulers of the Duchy of Florence in 1533, ending the republican government.

6 Republic Of Novgorod

While Novgorod was always ruled by a prince, the veche held the most power.^[5] The veche was effectively made up of every male citizen of the city and made government decisions through mass meetings in which people voted on the issues of the day. The veche could be convened by any free man of the city by ringing the veche bell in the town square, which was the official signal for any interested citizens to congregate in the square and participate in democracy.

The prince remained the head of state, but he was severely restricted by a constitution introduced by the veche : The prince was banned from engaging in commerce, for example, and could not hold land or have a personal army of more than 50 people. Other than the prince, the veche elected the posadnik (mayor) and tysyatsky (militia commander), who were in charge of day-to-day government.

As Novgorod grew in size and influence, the government became more advanced: By 1291, the state was managed by the council of lords, which was made up of the archbishop, a representative of the prince, the posadniks and tysyatsky of Novgorod, and the posadniks of other regions in the republic outside the city. Novgorod was split into five veches, which each elected their own posadnik. The territories the republic owned outside the city were also split into five regions, each with their own posadnik.

The republic’s end ultimately came from outside, from the city of Muscovy (aka Moscow), their ancient rival. Muscovy’s strength increased over the 14th and 15th centuries until, in 1478, the Muscovite prince and his army conquered Novgorod and removed the veche bell, officially ending the republic.

5 Iroquois Confederacy

The Iroquois Confederacy was a union of five—later six—Native American tribes who lived in the New York state area before the arrival of the first European colonists.^[6] Originally enemies, they were united by the semilegendary figure Hiawatha, who encouraged the tribes to work together and not to attack each other, instead helping each other to tackle their enemies.

The arrangement soon became a basis for government. Because Iroquois society was matriarchal, the individual clans and families were led by clan mothers. Each clan mother chose a chief to send to the Iroquois council, which was made up of 50 chiefs. The decisions of the council had to be unanimous, so no action would be taken until all 50 chiefs could be persuaded to support it.

As time went on, the Iroquois agreement became cemented in the Great Law of Peace, which was divided into 117 separate articles governing everything from religious and state ceremonies which helped to cement a feeling of unity between the six tribes, to protecting individual liberties and the concept of separate powers. Despite originally being recorded on strings of wampum shells because the Iroquois had no written alphabet, it was a highly complex and involved constitution. Ideas from it influenced the development of the United States Constitution—particularly Benjamin Franklin’s Albany Plan. In 1748, the Iroquois chiefs offered to teach their democratic principles to the British colonists.

The confederacy ended in 1784 in a brief but devastating war with the United States. Two of the tribes decided to relocate to British Canada for protection, one moved to a reservation in Wisconsin, and three were moved to reservations in New York, where they remain today.

4 Sparta

In the past, it wasn’t unusual for a country to be run by a single king or queen. What was far more uncommon, however, was a country ruled by two different kings from entirely different families at the same time—but this was the system the Spartans used.^[7]

The two kings were also priests of Zeus, making them especially important in the religious structure of the city-state. In times of war, one of the kings would lead the army to battle, and he would have almost unlimited power over the soldiers. When in the city itself, though, the kings had surprisingly little influence over state affairs: that was reserved for the Gerousia, the council of elders.

The Gerousia was made up of 28 elders and the two kings. Each elder had to be at least 60 years old. They were elected by the people in a voice vote—the candidate who received the loudest vote was chosen, after which he held the position for life. The Gerousia mainly existed to advise the kings on matters of government and to settle disputes between other Spartans—the council was also Sparta’s high court.

Proposed law changes were voted on by the people’s assembly, which met once a month and of which every male Spartan citizen over 30 was a member. Unlike in other Greek democracies, however, the assembly had very little power: It was not allowed to debate issues, only vote yes or no on them, and the Gerousia had the power to overturn any vote they deemed to be “crooked.” The assembly was originally overseen by the kings, but in later years, it was managed by the ephors, five people who were elected for a single one-year term (and who were banned from standing again after) by the assembly.

The ephors were originally introduced to oversee government practice but, much like the Council of Ten in Venice, soon seized power for themselves. Their role allowed them to scrutinize and punish any in the government who they saw as acting illegally, which frequently led to the ephors abusing their position. By the end of the Spartan age, the ephors controlled the activities of the kings and had their own secret police force.

3 Babylon

Long before the ancient Greeks, the Babylonian Empire stretched across most of Mesopotamia, uniting the region under a single government that, at its height, could easily have opposed the might of ancient Egypt.^[8]

The strength of the Babylonians lay in their authoritarian, centralized system of government that prioritized efficiency above all things. At the center of their system was the king, who was considered a god on Earth and who, if his mind was made up, no one could contradict. The king enforced his rule with an organized bureaucratic system of taxation, military conscription, census records, and records of goods created, traded, and stored. This was maintained by a large elite civil service who kept things moving and who owed their power to the king.

Perhaps most famously, though, the Babylonians created a well-known set of laws. The laws, which are often known as the Code of Hammurabi (named after the king who introduced them) were written so that the “strong should not harm the weak” and to “further the well-being of mankind,” according to Hammurabi himself. In all, it consisted of around 280 separate laws, most of which set out the responsibilities of people who entered contracts—for example, holding a builder to account for a house that falls down or removing a judge who changed his decision after it had been written down.

2 Holy Roman Empire

In all of human history, few governments have matched the Holy Roman Empire for sheer complexity.^[9] To fully explain the government of medieval Germany would take an entire list by itself, but at its heart, the Holy Roman Empire was governed by two separate bodies: the emperor and the Reichstag.

The emperor ruled for life, but unlike many other medieval monarchies, the position was not hereditary. Instead, on the emperor’s death, it was the duty of the empire’s electors to select a new emperor. For most of the empire’s history, the electors were the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, the king of Bohemia, the margrave of Brandenburg, the elector of Saxony, and the count of the Rhine. The emperor had to be at least 18 years old, be of noble blood, and own land in the empire. This meant that, while it was rare, monarchs of other states could be put forward as legitimate candidates for emperor. Otherwise, the emperor was similar to a ceremonial head of state today in many ways: He represented Germany abroad but had little actual diplomatic agency, he was the highest judge in the empire but could only exercise his power in the courts, he appointed officials and had his own household staff, and he could withhold his consent to new laws, preventing them from being passed.

The Reichstag was the council of the empire, made up of representatives from all its regions. The Reichstag served at the emperor’s pleasure until 1653, after which a new member of the Reichstag had to be approved by the College of Princes and the College of Electors (effectively, the other members and the electors).

The main body of the Reichstag was the College of Princes, which was made up of members called states of the empire. In the early days, a state of the empire was attached to a particular portion of land—so the owner of that land would go to the Reichstag as its representative and use its vote. If there were several owners of that land (which became increasingly common as landowners divided their lands between their sons on their deaths), they had to share that vote in the Reichstag. This meant that if someone held different portions of land around the empire, they could end up sharing several votes on the Reichstag with different people, without outright owning a single vote. On top of this, the emperor could make a particular individual into a state, giving him a vote even if he held no land—this privilege was removed in 1653. A state of the empire also had several rights, such as forming its own council and making its own treaties with countries outside the empire. In effect, each state of the empire was its own country, which sent a single vote but (sometimes) multiple representatives to the Reichstag, depending on who owned the land that made up that state. In addition, some states were specifically defined as having only a single vote, which only one individual could use, or shared votes, which could be shared between the state’s landholders.

To make matters worse, there were also units bigger and smaller than the states: The electors had their own college in the Reichstag, where they had much more influence than their measly number would suggest (there were over 1,000 states of the empire), and there were the imperial cities, independent city-states which were grouped into benches that were led by different cities at different times. The city with the most prominence was usually the city in which the Reichstag was meeting that day. (The empire had no permanently defined capital.) The rights of different states, electors, and cities also varied depending on whether or not they were held by a member of the clergy or a member of the nobility.

Thankfully, the whole sorry affair was put to an end by Napoleon in 1806 when he created the Confederation of the Rhine following the Battle of Austerlitz.

1 Inca Empire

At its height, the Inca Empire numbered over ten million people.^[10] Despite its great population, however, the number of ethnic Inca was a lot smaller. The empire united many different Andean peoples with wildly different cultures and languages in a single unit, ruled by a single man—their god-king, who was the son of their all-powerful sun god. The state was highly organized and hierarchical, with the king at the top, closely followed by his dead ancestors, who were mummified and preserved (and even consulted for advice in elaborate rituals at times of crisis). Immediately beneath the king was his council of ten families closely related to the royal family, who advised the king and helped in the running of the empire. Beneath them was another council of ten noble Inca families, which was followed by another council of ten non-Inca families from other parts of the empire.

Beneath them, the empire was split into 80 regions, each led by a governor, whose job it was to administrate his region and ensure that the enormous amount of data the empire collected from its people was properly recorded, kept, and transported back to the capital. To ensure that the governors remained loyal to the empire, their heirs were taken to the Inca capital at Cuzco to be held under house arrest, where the king and his allies could keep an eye on them.

But the most unusual thing about the Inca Empire was that, despite its large population and extremely organized bureaucracy, it had no system of currency or written language. The government collected a census every year that recorded births, deaths, marriages, individual workers’ skills and statuses, and the amount of goods in each region, among other things. It was used to help the central government decide on where to build new state projects, where food needed to be distributed, where to send laborers (who were sometimes traded as a commodity), and so on.

They did all this, even lacking a written language and despite the many cultural and linguistic barriers across their empire, by using quipu, which involved tying knots on strings to represent values. These strings allowed the Inca to develop a rather advanced credit/debit system not unlike modern Western accounting, built on the base-ten system that we use for mathematics across the world today. The quipu knots were used to record everything from the numbers of different goods in stockpiles to the distances traversed by enemy armies. Because it didn’t rely on knowledge of a written language to work, it could be used across the empire, without people having to learn each others’ languages.

Birds do it, bees do it, and even kleptogenic salamanders do it. No, it’s not fall in love, although maybe that’s part of it. It’s just reproducing. And while as humans we’re most familiar with the process of one male and one female sharing some genetic material so that a baby can be formed, not every living thing under the sun likes to multiply in the same fashion. Some continue their genetic line in ways that are almost unbelievable. 

10. Kleptogenesis Involves Stealing Genetic Material

Kleptogenesis does not involve stealing an early 90s gaming system, but it’s potentially just as cool. One species of salamanders exist solely as females so when it comes time to reproduce they have to be a little bit more creative than your average binary species. In the case of these little amphibians,the solution to their single sex conundrum comes in the form of theft. They steal sperm from males of other species in the same genus and decide for themselves how to use it. If that sounds baffling it’s because it is, but it’s been happening for millions of years, so just assume they know what they’re doing.

Salamander males will drop sperm packets that will then fertilize eggs from the females. Normally this gives you the kind of reproduction you’d expect, with a baby salamander that’s 50% of each parent. But for this one species, that’s not the case.

The females, and there are only females in this species, can collect multiple sperm packets and then apparently they have the ability to sort the genes they want to use. The result is that some of these salamanders have up to five different genomes in their cells. 

The mothers are able to discard whatever genetic material they don’t want from the males, and pass down a variety of genomes, as few or as many as they want, to their offspring. Some have been identified from species the salamanders don’t even descend from.

So, how does a salamander choose what genes to pass on? Good question. Scientists are still trying to figure that out.

9. Gynogenesis Uses Sperm But Not for Genetic Material

This method is kind of similar to kleptogenesis, but more restrictive. Essentially, animals that reproduce through gynogenesis need sperm to start the reproductive process, but not to finish it. So sperm needs to reach an egg and begin fertilization, but then the sperm and its genetic material is discarded and the offspring is made up solely of what the mother brings to the table.Think of it like the mother asking the would-be father to unlock the door to their apartment, but then she closes it in his face after and spends the night alone.

The key thing to remember about gynogenesis and what separates it from something like asexual reproduction and parthenogenesis when only one parent is needed is that gynogenesis does require a male’s involvement, just not his genetics. 

8. Hybridogenesis Occurs When One Half of a Hybrid’s Parents Genetics Are Combined with a Second Parent’s

The term “sexual parasitism” doesn’t sound entirely pleasant, but that’s how you can describe hybridogenesis, an extremely rare form of reproduction that can only occur with an already existing genetic hybrid. The mother has two different genetics from species A and species B. When it is time to reproduce, she will produce a gamete that may be genetically all A or all B, not a combination. That means when the egg is fertilized it will be 50% of the male and then 50% of only one half of the female’s genetics, meaning one genome will be entirely eliminated in reproduction.

Consider something like a mule. It’s a hybrid of a donkey and a horse. If a female mule were to mate with a horse, the mule’s gamete could be 100% horse and no donkey at all. Thus, when the male fertilizes the egg, the offspring will be 100% horse and the donkey genetics will be totally absent. 

Typically, this type of reproduction occurs in some species of frogs and a few fish as something like a mule is usually sterile. That said, a few mules have been bred over the years and some of their offspring seem to be genetically full horses. 

7. Sporogenesis is the Production of Spores to Reproduce

Have you ever wondered how a mushroom reproduces? Well, wonder no more because many fungal species take part in sporogenesis. In these and some plant and algae species, reproductive spores are formed that can remain dormant for a very long time. This is chiefly as a way of preserving the species during unfavorable living conditions. So if there was a drought, for instance, a fungus could create these spores and they could remain lifeless until drought conditions passed and then they could begin to grow. 

Under normal conditions, a fungus could reproduce sexually, but it may also release spores that are genetically identical to the parents, when it needs to. It can continue to do this until such time as traditional reproduction is an option again. 

6. Parthenogenesis Happens When an Unfertilized Egg Produces Offspring

Parthenogenesis is sort of like a surprise method of reproduction where an animal that normally reproduces sexually is able to produce an egg that isn’t fertilized but still gives rise to offspring, in this case genetically identical to the parent. It’s a favorite method of reproduction for marine tardigrades and some much more complex organisms will occasionally reproduce this way as well. In one case, a female shark that hadn’t been exposed to males for years gave birth to a baby that was a clone of the mother. 

Various arachnid species may reproduce through parthenogenesis but it has also been noted in reptiles, amphibians and birds as well. 

5. Fragmentation Is When a Severed Piece of an Organism Can Keep Growing

In terms of creepy reproduction methods, you’d be hard pressed to find anything that tops fragmentation. This is the kind of stuff that happens in horror movies. In simple terms, this happens when an organism gets damaged so badly it loses a piece of itself. That new piece doesn’t just wither and die like your hand would if it was accidentally lopped off, however. Instead, it grows into a whole new organism.

The fragment offspring will be a clone of the parent so that when it’s done, there will be two identical organisms, even though there was nothing close to sex involved in the forming of the second organism. 

It’s possible for fragmentation to be a natural form of reproduction but it’s just as likely to happen when an accident rips a limb off. Fortunately for those who find it unsettling, not a lot of creatures are able to do it. Most notably, this is how some starfish are able to reproduce, but there are some other species like earthworms that can pull it off as well. 

4. Budding Occurs When a Species Grows a New Clone That Pinches Itself Off of the Parent

Budding sounds fairly innocuous and not at all like a method of reproduction but it’s the name for the process organisms like hydras, jellyfish and yeast undergo when it’s time to produce a new round of life. 

The name refers to the fact that the parent organism will develop what looks like an actual bud, like you might see on a plant. The bud begins to form an exact copy of the parent organism until it is complete enough to separate fully from the parent and exist as a separate life form. The parent is left with a scar where the bud baby pulled away and became something new.

The new organism will be identical genetically to the parent but it will also be smaller because it’s still growing. Unlike something like binary fission, which we’ll see shortly, this process can be done with more complex, multicellular organisms. In a way it’s like what you might consider a typical pregnancy but it’s asexual and the offspring doesn’t develop inside the parent but on the parent until it matures enough to leave. 

In a species like the hydra, the buds form at a specific juncture between the stalk and gastric regions. If conditions are ideal, the hydra can produce a new version of itself every couple of days this way. 

3. Heterogony Occurs When a Species is Born Pregnant

If you’re the kind of person who likes to cut out the middleman and get right to the point, then heterogony is for you. Insects like aphids are able to reproduce in this fashion and it allows for the new generation to be born already pregnant with no need to worry about that time-consuming mating process. 

Aphids don’t lay eggs; they have live births and a single aphid is able to produce several perfect clones a day. This is how aphid infestations are so efficient, you really only need one to start an entire colony.

The insects have the ability to reproduce sexually if they want to, and will do this to add genetic diversity to ensure stronger offspring when the situation allows.

2. Binary Fission Involves Making an Exact Copy

Binary fission sounds very sci-fi and maybe a little dangerous but it’s actually one of the simplest forms of reproduction in nature. So simple, in fact, only simple life forms like various kinds of bacteria can do it because the rest of us are just far too complex to pull it off.

Found in simple single-celled organisms and a few other microscopic beasts, binary fission occurs when the DNA of the single cell begins to copy itself and essentially sticks all of the new material to the wall of the cell until it’s so full of new material the cell splits in two and now there are two completely identical cells and the long single-celled organism has become two. It made its own twin!

1. Plant Grafting Can Mix Numerous Species in One Place

Plant reproduction is obviously a little different from animal reproduction but for the most part we understand that one plant needs to be pollinated by another and at some point a seed forms and maybe a new plant grows as a result. More or less. But plants have a few extra tricks up their sleeves that allow them to thrive under the most unusual conditions and nothing is more bizarre than grafting.

Because so many plants are genetically similar, as in they come from the same family, botanists and horticulturists have discovered over the years that you can take a cutting from one plant and attach it to a different plant to produce something brand new. And, just like a human limb transplant, that cutting can heal in place and begin to grow. But unlike a limb transplant, this new branch can be so different that what you create is a fruit tree that now grows two different fruits. Or, if you really want to push the envelope, you can make what they call fruit salad trees.

Right now you can buy a tree that grows limes, mandarin oranges and pomelos. Or maybe one that grows peaches, nectarines, plums and other stone fruit. Word is you can get some that grow as many as 7 or 8 different strains of fruit on the same tree and they come in four main varieties including citrus, stone fruit, apple and nashi which grow Asian pears