I know the movie 300 isn't an historically accurate movie, but it had soldiers riding on Rhinos, and it made me wonder about this topic.
These questions might also be good to ask in /r/askscience, but for now I don't want to ask about the scientific reasons why it's difficult or impossible to tame other large animals.
Rather, I'd like to know:
Are there any records of anyone in history successfully using, or at least attempting to tame Rhinos or other animals?
Were there any depictions in art/literature about using these animals in war?
Horses aren't native in the Americas, so what animals did the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, or other natives use (or try to use)? The only large animals in the Americas were Llamas and Bison.
Not just Rhinos, but what about Bears, Boars, Lions, or other large cats (I'm sorry if it's a silly question, it seems I've been playing too many fantasy games)
And to clarify, if I'm not already clear, this is about animals people ride on, not about armies releasing animals such as rabid dogs and wolves into the enemy army.
The Lamut/Even and neighboring peoples of Siberia utilized reindeer as cavalry mounts though I could find only one paper providing details: Some Aspects of Warfare of the Reindeer Lamut in the 17th century by Alexander Nefedkin. Nefedkin cites Cossack eyewitness who states that the Lamut fight "sitting on reindeers as if riding on horses" and other accounts which state that the Tungus people (a neighbor to the Lamuts/Even) were trained to shoot bows from the back from the reindeers; the Lamuts/Even were also reported to shoot game from the back of reindeers.
There are no sources indicating the specific tactics of the reindeer cavalry though due to the emphasis of these cultures on archery, Nefedkin posits that the reindeer cavalry might be primarily mounted archers.
Follow-up question if anyone's still checking here: I heard the Swedes experimented with moose-born cavalry in the 17th century but couldn't get the moose to shy from pikes, leading to a lot of unnecessary moose deaths. Is this true?
Can somebody verify this portion of Wikipedia, which is almost entirely source-free? As the boxing announcer in Futurama says, "Interesting if true!"
Ancient Egyptians often kept cheetahs as pets, and also tamed and trained them for hunting, although they did not domesticate it. Cheetahs would be taken to hunting fields in low-sided carts or by horseback, hooded and blindfolded, and kept on leashes while dogs flushed out their prey. When the prey was near enough, the cheetahs would be released and their blindfolds removed. This tradition was passed on to the ancient Persians and brought to India, where the practice was continued by Indian princes into the twentieth century. Cheetahs continued to be associated with royalty and elegance, their use as pets spreading just as their hunting skills were. Other such princes and kings kept them as pets, including Genghis Khan and Charlemagne, who boasted of having kept cheetahs within their palace grounds. Akbar the Great, ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1556 to 1605, kept as many as 1,000 cheetahs. As recently as the 1930s, the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, was often photographed leading a cheetah by a leash.
This may sound nitpicky, but there weren't just Llamas in South America, there were Llamas, Alpacas and the Chilihueque which may or may not had been a different species.
No historical accounts of Llama riders, though it's technically possible they are very temperamental and nasty, so I wouldn't be surprised if nobody bothered. There's an account from a dutch navigator seeing them used for ploughs though.
The Roman author Aelian noted that pigs were sometimes used by Romans and Greeks to break sieges by war elephants, since apparently, elephants were scared by pigs, which would cause great confusion and sometimes make the elephants turn around and stampede into the enemy's own ranks.
Of course they wouldn't ride the pigs, but it's still an interesting use of an animal for warfare.
(source: Aelian, On Animals 1.38; 16.36)
If you want a fun read related to the subject, you might wanna pick up Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor.