Collecting information from members of the public has long been a method of scientific research. We call it citizen science. According to National Geographic, this is “the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge”.

Elsewhere, Aelian reports on strange creatures we are more familiar with. Take, for example, his story of a giant octopus:

I learn of an octopus at Dicaearchia in Italy which attained to a monstrous bulk and scorned and despised food from the sea and such pasturage as it provided. And so this creature actually came out on to the land and seized things there. Now it swam up through a subterranean sewer that discharged the refuse of the aforesaid city into the sea and emerged in a house on the shore where some Iberian merchants had their cargo, that is, pickled fish from that country in immense jars: it threw its tentacles round the earthenware vessels and with its grip broke them and feasted on the pickled fish.

Aelian says one of the merchants wanted to fight the octopus to prevent it stealing their food, but was too afraid as the creature “was too big for one man” to fight.

We don’t know whether Aelian’s stranger stories are true or not. Nonetheless, it’s clear at least some of these tales were collected from other people during his research.

By getting help from the public, ancient researchers were able to make a great deal of progress in studies of subjects such as animals and plants. They had to be careful, though. Much like today, discernment was necessary in the case of strange tales.