Mike and Dylan are joined this week by their first ever guest! James Begin from Tropidelic is on the show this week, and they are talking about weaponized animals used in WWII. First, the focus is on one of the earliest animals used in battle in an unconventional way: The flaming war pig! The guys talk about what animals were used in different ways, such as the way the Soviets used dogs. Most people think of war dogs as canines who could attack a soldier in the trenches, sniff out enemy weapons, or even help carry supplies. The Soviets figured dogs could be great suicide bombers, and fitted them with landmines to become Anti Tank Dogs Exploding Rat bombs were also a thing! The British used rats to conceal small explosives, which they had sewn into the innards of the rat. Then, the rat was to be placed outside an enemy camp, specifically near the boiler room. The thought would be that the rats would be dumped in and kaboom! Project Pigeon was an experiment by the US to use pigeons in a different way. The original job of the pigeon in war was to deliver messages, but that's not what we wanted. The US wanted these pigeons to deliver bombs! The pigeons would be the pilots essentially, leading a bomb onto a target. The US also had project x-ray, another animal bomb. This time, bats were the main ingredient. The bats were fitted with little vests, and the vests were filled with napalm. When the bats scattered around the city and roosted, bam! A whole city could be up in flames in seconds! The last weaponized animals talked about today are the fleas and flies that Japan used as bio weapons. The fleas were covered in bubonic plague, also known as the black plague. These fleas were then stuffed into clay casings and dropped onto China, where the fleas would spread the plague. The Japanese also coated the flies with cholera, and sprayed them out of a crop duster plane. You can thank Unit 731 for that!