BURSTAlongside sticks, stones, and bone, humans also once harnessed a surprising ally in their early weaponry: insects. Researchers hypothesize that humans started using them on the battlefield as far back as 100,000 years ago, long before the beginning of recorded history.
These creatures might be tiny, but they can be mighty. Venomous stingers, refined through millions of years of evolution, can tear the skin and unleash poison. Bacteria that cause deadly diseases in humans and other animals can hitch a ride as insects scatter and swarm across a human landscape.
But to harness this brutal power without first becoming victims of the minute creatures required innovation of devices and of tactics. Below, a list of a few of the creatures used in entomological warfare and the innovations that allowed humans to turn them to their deadly endeavors without themselves suffering attack.
Bee Cannons
Beehive bombs may have been some of the first projectile weapons, according to scholars. As early as Neolithic times, evidence suggests that warriors would attack enemies hiding in caves by throwing hornet nests through the openings. But these buzzing bombs had to be handled carefully to protect against the risk of premature explosion or blowback. One ingenious invention used by the Tiv ethnic tribe of Nigeria, was the bee cannon, a large horn that stored these insects until it could be hurled at the enemy. The horn contained a powder, which was believed to strengthen the potency of their venom, but it might have also served to tranquilize the bees until the moment of impact. To use the weapon, the cannon was simply aimed toward the opponent. The length and shape of the horn assisted in directing the angry stinging bees at the target.
Bee Grenades
As early as 2600 B.C., the ancient Mayans conscripted bees for warfare. Mayans, traditionally skilled potters, are understood to have created specialized bee grenades from clay. These urns were crafted to withstand being catapulted yet brittle enough to break upon landing. To fill the urns with stinging insects, the clay vessels were left outside until they were taken over by bees. When battle time approached, the openings of the devices were sealed with wads of grass, keeping the insects in place but allowing air to circulate within the colony. This antique method allowed the Mayans to attack their enemy with a swarm of furious bees without getting stung (much) themselves.
Ceramic Uji bombs could hold 30,000 infected fleas each.
Scorpion Bombs
When the Roman emperor Septimus Severus waged the Second Parthian War to expand his control to Mesopotamia in 198-99 A.D., little did he know that his soldiers would also be up against venomous stinging creatures. Despite his large military force, Severus failed twice to conquer Hatra, the second largest city of Iraq. Herodian, an Antiochian historian, recounts that the Hatrian built earthenware bombs loaded with “insects” to catapult at their attackers. Today, historians believe these insects might have been scorpions. In ancient Persia, scorpions were abundant, and their intensely painful venomous stings can cause convulsions, a slowed pulse, irregular breathing, and occasionally even death. According to written accounts, the Hatrian army might have used powdered monkshood, a plant containing potent cardiotoxins and neurotoxins, to stun the insects for safe capture. Regardless of what insects actually filled the earthenware bombs hurled at Severus’ army as they attempted to scale Hatras’ walls, the tactic held them back for at least 20 days.
Porcelain Flea Bombs
In 1920s Japan, a mosquito-borne encephalitis virus killed 3,500 people on the island of Shikoku. General Shiro Ishii, a microbiologist and an army officer, was sent to Shikoku to study the epidemic, and he quickly began to plot using the great destructive power of insects for war. With support from the Japanese government and its military, Ishii set up the infamous Unit 731 where he researched and experimented ways to wield nature’s creatures against Japan’s enemies. Here, along with his massive team of researchers, Ishii innovated the ceramic Uji bombs that could hold 30,000 infected fleas each. These porcelain bombs are thought to have been first used in Xinjing, China leading to the city’s 1940 plague. During a later raid on a city in the Chinese interior called Changteh, the Japanese army is estimated to have released more than 100 million infected fleas, leading to an epidemic that would kill more than 7,000 people. Over the next few years, Unit 731 attacked more than a dozen towns, cities, and villages in China, leaving more than 100,000 dead in their wake.
Maggot Bombs
In the interest of expanding their repertoire, Japanese Unit 731 began experimenting with house flies—a pest known to flourish among human habitations. Borrowing from the design of the Uji bombs, they developed the maggot bomb, officially known as the Yagi bomb. Sectioned into two parts, the device cached cholera bacteria in one enclosure and, contrary to its name, adult house flies in the other. When hurled, the casing of the maggot bomb burst on impact, unleashing the insects covered in the deadly bacteria, which then would spread across the city. The Yagi bombs were used numerous times in attacks against the Chinese from May, 1942 to August, 1943, and are estimated to have ultimately killed more than 400,000 people there, making them potentially more deadly even than the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
This is just a small sampling of the ways humans have enlisted insects to help them wage war, later termed biological warfare. Because of the horrors such weapons visited upon their human victims, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibited the use of biological weapons in war, and by 1972, international authorities had outlawed even their creation or possession. The insects can do quite enough damage even without our help—mosquitos alone are still responsible for more than 700,000 deaths each year. 
Lead image by Tasnuva Elahi; with images by Alexander_P and JocularityArt / Shutterstock
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