A closer look
The 'Father of History' was notoriously bad at verifying his sources, resulting in some deeply hilarious historical records. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus wrote of massive, dog-sized ants in Persia that threw up gold dust while digging their burrows. It took until the 1990s for researchers to realize he had suffered a massive translation error: the Persian word for marmot simply translates to 'mountain ant,' and yes, the furry little rodents actually dig in gold-rich soil.






