Taken from a Grantland article: But everyone loves bird facts!

i. During World War II, “Project Pigeon” was American behaviorist B.F. Skinner’s attempt to develop a pigeon-guided missile.

ii. Also during World War II, an American dental surgeon named Lytle S. Adams formulated a plan to strap time bombs to the legs of bats and drop them over Japanese cities from 5,000 feet in the air. Franklin Roosevelt approved the plan and the military spent $2 million developing a “bat bomb,” including staging a full test in a mocked-up Japanese village somewhere in Utah.

iii. The Soviet Union trained dolphins to attack invading frogmen using harpoons strapped to their backs. The dolphins could also go kamikaze and carry explosives against enemy submarines.

iv. In 12th-century China, armies dressed monkeys in oil-soaked straw jackets, set them on fire, and released them in enemy camps.

v. During the siege of Megara in the third century B.C., flaming pigs were unleashed to frighten enemy war elephants.

vi. An American homing pigeon named Cher Ami was awarded the Croix de Guerre for heroic service in World War I. He delivered messages for the Allies during the Battle of Verdun. After dying of wounds sustained in battle, he was mounted by a taxidermist, and is now on display at the Smithsonian next to a dog who was promoted to sergeant in the 102nd Infantry.