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Santal people

The Santal (or Santhal) are an Austroasiatic-speaking Munda ethnic group of the Indian subcontinent. Santals are the largest tribe in the Jharkhand and West Bengal in terms of population and are also found in the states of Odisha, Bihar, Assam and Tripura. They are the largest ethnic minority in northern Bangladesh's Rajshahi Division and Rangpur Division. They have a sizeable population in Nepal. The Santals speak Santali, the most widely spoken Munda languages of Austroasiatic language family.

Etymology
Santal is most likely derived from an exonym. The term refers to inhabitants of Saont in erstwhile Silda in Medinapore region in West Bengal. The Sanskrit word Samant or Bengali Saont means plain land. Their ethnonym is Hor Hopon ("child of human").

Origins
According to linguist Paul Sidwell, Austro-Asiatic language speakers probably arrived on coast of Odisha from Indochina about 4,000–3,500 years ago (c. 2000 BCE). The Austroasiatic speakers spread from Southeast Asia and mixed extensively with local Indian populations.

Due to the lack of significant archaeological records, the original homeland of the Santhals is not known with certainty. The folklore of the Santhals claims they came from Hihiri, which scholars have identified as Ahuri in Hazaribagh district. From there, they claim, they were pushed onto Chota Nagpur Plateau, then to Jhalda, Patkum and finally Saont, where they settled for good. According to Dalton, where they were renamed to Santal from cluster name Kharwar. This legend, which has been cited by several scholars, has been used as evidence that the Santals once had a significant presence in Hazaribagh. Colonial scholar Colonel Dalton claimed in Chai there was a fort formerly occupied by a Santal raja who was forced to flee when the Delhi Sultanate invaded the territory.

British Era

In the latter half of the 18th century, the Santals entered the historical record in 1795 when they are recorded as "Soontars." During the Bengal Famine of 1770, the drier western and southwestern parts of Bengal, especially the Jungle Mahals region, were some of the worst-hit areas and were significantly depopulated. This depopulation resulted in a significant loss of revenue for the East India Company. Therefore, when the Permanent Settlement was enacted in 1790, the Company looked for agriculturalists to clear the lands. British officials turned their attention to Santals, who were ready to clear the forest for the practice of settled agriculture. In 1832, a large number of area of the Raj Mahal hills demarcated as Damin-i-koh. Santal from Cuttack, Dhalbhum, Birbhum, Manbhum, Hazaribagh migrated and started cultivating these lands as peasants sponsored by landowners and the British who were desperate for labour. Under British direction, Santals took loans from non-Santal moneylenders to buy iron tools, seed grain and oxen as individuals and families, rather than groups as was their custom for working the land.

When they arrived in Damin-i-koh (present day Santal Pargana), the British provided no protection for the Santals against the preexisting Mal Paharias, who were against destruction of forest, were known raiders of the plains areas and had only recently been partially "pacified". Eventually, the Santals, with their better technology and ability to match the Paharia's guerrilla attacks, managed to drive them out. They clear the forest tracts and started cultivation in these areas. Their settlement took place between the 1830s and 1850s: in 1830, the area was home to only 3,000 Santals, but by the 1850s, 83,000 Santals had settled in the land and had turned it into paddy fields. This resulted in a 22 times increase in Company revenue from the area.

However, as they became more agricultural, the Santals were exploited by the zamindars. Unlike the Santals, the British valued individual competition instead of cooperation, and had a rigid system of laws very different from the relatively relaxed norms of the village council, the highest form of government most Santals knew. Mahajans from Bengal and Baniyas from Bihar began selling goods from elsewhere, and many Santals, seeing them as exotic, were tricked into debt to buy them, usually with a mortgage on their land. When the Santals were unable to pay the moneylenders back, they became owners of the land and the Santals became dispossessed landless peasants. The Baniya merchants and other outsiders also began to treat Santals as outcastes in a Brahminical system.

Eventually, these acts of exploitation, combined with British tax policies and corrupt tax collectors, deteriorated to the point where Santals grew discontented. In 1855, they revolted in the Santal rebellion, better known as the Santal Hul. 30,000 Santals, led by Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu, attacked the zamindars and other outsiders (dikkus) who had made their lives so miserable, as well as the British authorities. Eventually, around 10,000 British troops managed to suppress the rebellion. Although the rebellion's impact was largely overshadowed by that of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the impact of the Santhal Rebellion lives on as a turning point in Santhal pride and identity. This was reaffirmed, over a century and a half later with the creation of the tribal province in the Republic of India, Jharkhand. Following the rebellion, the British satisfied all Santhal demands, due to their importance as a tax-paying group. The British created a 5000 km2 area, called Santal Parganas, where the normal procedures of British India did not apply. Administration of the community was primarily made the responsibility of the village headman, or pradhan, who was also given the power to collect taxes. It was made illegal for Santals to transfer land to non-Santals, allowing them to have legal rights over their land.

After the British Crown formally took control over India in 1858, the Santals continued their system of government and traditions. Newly established Christian missions brought education, and many Santals moved to the tea plantations in Assam, North Bengal, where they still remain today. However, most continued with their old life, but were still not prosperous. In addition, secular education did not become widespread until after Indian independence.

In the late 19th century, many Santals migrated from the Santal Parganas to the districts of Bihar and North Bengal such as Purnia, Malda and Dinajpur. The Santals still faced retaliation after the Santal Hul and were invited by zamindars to cultivate many parts of north Bengal, which had become scrubland, land which the Santals specialized in farming. By the 1930s, their numbers in this region the Santals had become two lakh. Most were settled on wasteland where the rent was cheaper than the more fertile wet lands. However they faced heavy taxation from the zamindars, and were oppressed by moneylenders, upper castes, and the bureaucracy in general. In 1924, several Santal sardars, influenced by Gandhian ideology and led by Jitu Sardar, began to lead agitations against the oppressive double system of elite Bengalis and British government. Santals stopped paying rent to the zamindars, beat up revenue inspectors, and led agitations against the moneylenders. In 1928, the Santals stopped paying the chaukidari tax and led protests in Thakurgaon in 1929. In 1932, several Santals attempted to organise their own state with Jitu Sardar as head, initially based on Gandhi's Ram Rajya but quickly criticised Gandhi when he did not help them. In 1933, a British commissioner was appointed to look into the grievances of Santals of North Bengal.

Post-independence
The Santal community, like the others of the region, was split between West Bengal in India and East Bengal in Pakistan during Partition. After independence, the Santals were made one of the Scheduled Tribes in India. In East Pakistan, there were some regions in the west where Santals were still in significant numbers. There and in neighbouring West Bengal, the Santals provided significant support to the Tebhaga movement. After the Pakistani military crushed the uprising and burned many Santal homes, many fled across the border to Malda in India.

In northern West Bengal, tribal peasants participated in Naxalbari uprising led by a Santal communist leader Jangal Santhal. The impoverishment has led to the Guevarist inspired Naxalite insurgency in what is often termed as the Red Corridor.

After Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000, the Santal Parganas was made a separate division of the state. These Santals have also agitated for recognition of their traditions in the census as a separate religion, sarna dharam, for which Jharkhand assembly passed a resolution in 2020. Many still face poverty and exploitation, and in Bangladesh, theft of their lands is common. Although spread out over a large area, they now consider the Santal Parganas as their cultural heartland.

Society
The base of Santal society is a division between "sibling" (boeha) and "guest" (pera), a divide found in many other tribal societies of central and eastern India. Children of the same father (sometimes grandfather), known as nij boeha, often live next to each other and own adjacent pieces of land. Those in the closest form of brotherhood, called mit orak hor ("people of one house") in Singhbhum, cannot marry each other and propitiate the same deity, since the house refers to a common ancestor from which all the families are believed to descend. Only mit orak hor marriages are severely stigmatised. Another brotherhood is membership of a clan, which are exogamous. The last form of brotherhood is phul, a ritual friendship with members of other ethnic groups. Children of phul brothers consider themselves as brothers, and they attend each other's main lifecycle events, such as weddings or funerals, as pera. They also give help in times of hardship.

Those who do not have brotherhood are referred to as pera, or guests. Members of other communities, especially those not speaking Santali, are excluded from this grouping, except for communities such as the Karmakar, Mahali or Lohar of their locality, who are enmeshed in Santal society. Those with this relationship can marry, and attend major festivals as guests. People related by marriage, although pera, have special roles in life-cycle events. Women perform special welcome rituals for pera when they visit. Those related by marriage can have one of two relationships. They can be bala, a relationship exemplified by the couple's parents, or sangat, between cross-siblings of a couple.

Santal society has much less stratification and is more egalitarian than adjacent caste Hindu society, but still has some status differences. The most important marker of a person when interacting with others in Santal society is their standing as marang ("senior") or hudin ("junior"). This standing is evaluated by relation: for example, is someone is greeting their father's elder brother's son, they would be the junior irrespective of age. Similarly, when someone greets their elder brother's wife, the wife would be marang. However, for strangers or guests with no clear kin connections, the question of marang or hudin is decided by age. The ritual greeting (god in Santali) of someone is given much importance and is done in the courtyard of a house when a pera visits. The greeting differs by gender, and whether the person is junior or senior to the one being greeted. The greeting rituals given by a hudin involve an "offering" (dobok' johar) of respect, while a marang "receives" this respect. This greeting should not be done hastily, and correct practice of it is encouraged in children from a young age. However the hudin-marang distinction does not apply to phul or bala, who instead greet each other as if greeting a marang.

The Santals also have totemistic clans, known as pari. These 12 clans are divided into two ranks: 7 senior and 5 junior. The senior clans are believed to originate from the 7 sons and daughters of the first man and woman, and in order of seniority they are: Hansda (goose), Murmu (Nilgai), Marandi (Ischaemum rugosum), Kisku (kingfisher), Soren (Pleiades), Hembram (betel palm) and Tudu (owl). The junior clans are Baskey or Baske (stale rice), Besra (falcon), Chorey or Chonre (lizard), Pauria or Pawria (pigeon) and Bediya. Members of a senior clan do not marry members of a junior clan, and there are some forbidden marriages as well, such as between Marandi and Kisku. In addition, Besras are sometimes treated differently due to their perceived low status, but other than the context of marriage, they play no role in social life. The clans also avoid harming their clan totem, lest evil befall them.

The Santals have another social organisation important for rituals, called khunti, or gusti in south Chota Nagpur. The term refers to descendants of a common ancestor, no more than a few generations back, that live nearby. The khunti is identified by some distinguishing feature of the ancestor, such as poeta, people who wear a thread on their chest in worship. In many cases, all the people of a gusti live in their ancestral village, but some members may have migrated to neighbouring villages.

Festivals
Sohrai is the principal festival of Santal community. Besides that Baha, Karam, Dashain, Sakrat, Mahmore, Rundo and Magsim are important festivals. They traditionally accompany many of their dances during these festivals with two drums: the Tamak‘ and the Tumdak’.

Chadar Badar, a form of puppetry known also as Santal puppetry, is a folk show involving wooden puppets placed in a small cage which acts as the stage.

Local affairs are handled by a village council, led by a manjhi.

The walls of traditional Santal homes are ornamented with carved designs of animals, hunting scenes, dancing scenes, and geometric patterns. Santal bridal palanquins are also finely carved.

Marriage
There are seven kinds of marriage recognized in the Santal community, each with its own degree of social acceptance. The most elaborate kind of marriage is the hapramko bapla, or ancestor's marriage, but the most widely practiced is kesimek'. In this form of marriage, a boy and girl who wish to marry decide to go to the groom's house and stay there a while. When the girl's family are made aware of their situation, the jog majhi of the girl's village arrives at the house of the headman of the boy's village to discover the couple's intentions. The couple are summoned to the village headman and the bride is asked whether she wishes to set a date for kesimek'. If she replies 'no', the boy's family will have to pay a small fine to the jog majhi of the girl's village, who would take the girl back to her father. If she assents, the boy's family is consulted for the best day for the kesimek'. The bride and groom are not bound by any obligation to marry. During this time, the jog majhi stays in the village to give all the information he can to the bride's father: both in determining what would be a good bride price to demand and whether the marriage might end in a short time.

On the day of the kesimek' ceremony, a group of men from the bride's village, including the jog majhi, headman, village elders, and the bride's father and some relations, arrives at the bride's village. They are seated at the headman's house with respect and organized by marang or hudin status. Meanwhile, the groom's family gathers to discuss the bride price the groom's father should pay. The two parties then meet and the fathers negotiate the bride price to be paid. The groom is first asked whether he wishes the marriage to continue. As a symbolic marriage contract, the groom's father gives a small amount of cash and gives handi (rice-beer) to the guests. The negotiations for bride-price continue between the fathers exclusively until an amount is reached. Although this is nowadays in cash, livestock or other goods are not uncommon. The bride price is generally light and it is seen wrong to stop two young people from marrying because of a disagreement about bride price. After an agreement is reached, celebrations ensue and festive drinking continues into the night.

A short time afterwards, a relative of the groom along with the jog majhi of the groom's village hand over the bride price to the bride's family. Afterwards the couple arrive in the bride's natal village. The bride arriving first carrying a pot with white clay, the symbol of a woman returning to her natal village as a guest. The bride greets her mother first and neighbours are invited to share handi reserved for pera (pera hor handi), while getting acquainted with the husband. When the couple leaves the bride's village, the bride pays her respects to the headman in his courtyard. At the Majhi Than, the bride thanks the headman for all he has done and gives a symbolic gift. The headman then blesses the couple and wishes the bride strength, good luck and many strong sons. The couple then leaves for the groom's village to start their new life.

Marriages done by kesimek' involve very little ritual: Santal society has clearly defined roles for marriage, and the choice of the couple is respected. Decisions by the families are done in a spirit of consensus rather than adversarially, and marriage is seen just as important for the entire village as for the couple.

Religion
The Santal are granted Scheduled Tribe status in five states: Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Tripura, where they account for a total population of 6,570,807 according to the 2011 Census of India. Of this population, 63.15% are reported as Hindu, 23% as Sarna, 7.28% as Sari Dharam (all in West Bengal), and 5.46% as Christian. Other minor religious affiliations include Bidin (27,602), Muslim (13,014), Santal (4,771), Sumra Sandhi (2,059), Sarvdharm (1,625), Buddhist (1,121), Adi Bassi (1,100), Sikh (987), Kharwar (385), Sant (356), Saran (352), Jain (348), Achinthar (273), Sarin (185), Marangboro (167), Saranath (157), Seran (125), Adi (84), and Alchichi (78). Additionally, 102 were Atheist, 331 were believers of Tribal religion, 1,123 followed other unclassified religions, and 16,974 did not state any religious affiliation.

In the Santal religion, the majority of reverence falls on a court of spirits (bonga), who handle different aspects of the world and who are placated with prayers and offerings. These benevolent spirits operate at the village, household, ancestor, and sub-clan level, along with evil spirits that cause disease and can inhabit village boundaries, mountains, water, tigers, and the forest. The bonga are intermediaries between noa puri (visible world) and hana puri (the invisible reality), the abode of a Creator. This creator is variously called Marang Buru (Supreme Deity or literally The Great Mountain) or Thakur Jiu (life giver), and is the "cause of all causes," making the Santal religion, in a deep sense, monotheistic as well as pantheistic.

There are several ranks of bongas: the most important are associated intimately with Marang Buru and are worshipped by all Santals. These include Marang Buru bonga, Jaher Era bonga and Gosae Era. Other bongas, who are held to be less powerful, are the spirits of important people of the village who have since been deified. There is also another class of bongas who are feared as bringers of evil. These spirits are not placated by a priest but by a medicine-man called ojha. In the present-day, belief in these malignant bongas is eroding due to the penetration of modern medical science. The lack of a separate name for malignant bongas caused many early colonial scholars to present Santal religion as wholly focused on the appeasement of evil spirits or as representing bongas as exclusively harmful. However bonga in itself simply means a supernatural force in the world and has no specific connotation with good or evil. Moreover, these bongas do not refer to specific objects but to the invisible force that governs or is associated with those objects.

The Santal creation story holds that originally the world was water, and Marang Buru and some lesser deities were the only inhabitants. When some spirits requested permission to make humans, Marang Buru asked Malan Budhi to create the human bodies. When she had finally succeeded, she was told by Marang Buru to use the human spirits that were high on the rafters of his hut. She could not reach the human spirit, and took the bird spirit instead. When Marang Buru integrated the spirits with the bodies, they flew away and asked for a place to build a nest. Marang Buru could not get anyone else to bring land to the surface, and so the tortoise volunteered and pushed the Earth onto his back. The birds then gave birth to a boy and a girl called Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Budhi. These two had seven sons and seven daughters, but the couple soon had a quarrel and separated. Pilchu Haram and his sons became great hunters, and on a time came upon the daughters, who had become maidens and were unrecognisable. They became introduced and made love. Looking for his sons, Pilchu Haram discovered an old woman and asked for fire, and upon talking to her more, he discovered his wife and reconciled with her. Another version tells how Pilchu Budhi was in fact in tears at her daughters' disappearance, but Marang Buru reassured her that they were all safe and brought her to reconcile with her husband. When their sons found out they had married their sisters, they were very angry and would have killed their parents if Marang Buru had not hidden them in a cave, where they stayed for the rest of their days. The children of these seven couples became the progenitors of the Santal clans.

A characteristic feature of a Santal village is a sacred grove (known as the Jaher ) on the edge of the village where many spirits live and where a series of annual festivals take place. This grove is set aside in the founding of the village and left undisturbed except at times of festival. Inside is set a series of natural (uncut) stones which represent the bongas, but are not substitutes except during festival. The Majhi Than, a raised mound of earth covered with a thatched roof outside the headman's house, is where the Majhi's ancestors' spirits live. During the summer, a jug of water is placed there so the spirits can drink. Here the most important decisions of the village are made, including judgements.

A yearly round of rituals connected with the agricultural cycle, along with life-cycle rituals for birth, marriage and burial at death, involves petitions to the spirits and offerings that include the sacrifice of animals, usually birds. Religious leaders are male specialists in medical cures who practice divination and witchcraft (the socio-historic meaning of the term, used here, refers to the ritual practice of magic and is not pejorative). Similar beliefs are common among other tribes on the Chota Nagpur Plateau like the Kharia, Munda, and Oraon.

Smaller and more isolated tribes often demonstrate less articulated classification systems of the spiritual hierarchy described as animism or a generalised worship of spiritual energies connected with locations, activities, and social groups. Religious concepts are intricately entwined with ideas about nature and interaction with local ecological systems. As in Santal religion, religious specialists are drawn from the village or family and serve a wide range of spiritual functions that focus on placating potentially dangerous spirits and co-ordinating rituals.

Schedule Tribe status
The Santhal people are constitutionally designated as Scheduled Tribes only in Fifth Schedule areas, such as Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, and Tripura. While the Santals, who migrated from Fifth Schedule areas to Sixth Schedule areas, specifically to Assam as tea garden laborers during the British Raj, are not considered Scheduled Tribes. Instead, they are classified as Other Backward Class in Assam, and the remaining population living in other states is considered part of the general population. The inclusion in Schedule Tribe list have been opposed by respective states and tribal activists organization following Sixth Scheduled autonomy, such as the Coordination Committee of Tribal Organizations of Assam (CCTOA). The organisation feared up that granting Scheduled Tribe status to the Santal and other 40 migrated tribal communities will squeeze up the benefits of natives, the "original tribal people" of the state.

Religion status
The Santhal people believe in nature worship, and their place of worship is in sacred groves known as Jaher and Sarna, in contrast to Hindu places of worship in temples. They also perform animal sacrifices to honor their gods and accept flesh, including beef and pork, practices that are generally prohibited in Hinduism. Thus they consider themselves believers of Sari and Sarna religion rather than Hinduism. Although there is overlap of ideology, belief, culture and practices in between Sarnasim and Hinduism.

Administrative officials

 * G. C. Murmu, 14th CAG of India and first Lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir (union territory)

Entertainment

 * Rathin Kisku, Baul singer.

Freedom Fighter

 * Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu, leader of Santhal rebellion.

Literature

 * Turia Chand Baskey, Santali writer
 * Damayanti Beshra, Santali writer
 * Shyam Sundar Besra, Santali writer
 * Rupchand Hansda, writer
 * Arjun Charan Hembram, writer
 * Sarada Prasad Kisku, writer from Purulia
 * Joba Murmu, writer
 * Raghunath Murmu, Inventor of Ol Chiki script. He is also known as Olguru.
 * Sadhu Ramchand Murmu, Santali Poet, known as Kabiguru.
 * Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, writer
 * Kherwal Soren, writer

Politician

 * Birbaha Hansda, Santali-language actress and politician
 * Babulal Marandi, first chief minister of Jharkhand
 * Droupadi Murmu, 15th president of India, former governor of Jharkhand, former minister, Government of Odisha.
 * Khagen Murmu an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament from Maldaha Uttar (Lok Sabha constituency).
 * Salkhan Murmu, Indian socio-political activist, former MP from Mayurbhanj
 * Hemant Soren, Ex Chief Minister of Jharkhand
 * Shibu Soren, former chief minister of Jharkhand and president of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. He is also known as Disomguru.
 * Uma Saren, Politician, former MP from Jhargram

Science and technology

 * Naresh Chandra Murmu, chief scientist and director of Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute, Durgapur, West-Bengal, India.

Sports

 * Purnima Hembram, Athlete
 * Rafayel Tudu, football player

title: Santal people


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Spy Hunter

Spy Hunter is a vehicular combat game developed by Bally Midway and released for arcades in 1984. The game draws inspiration from the James Bond films and was originally supposed to carry the James Bond brand. The object of the game is to drive down roads in the technologically advanced "Interceptor" car and destroy various enemy vehicles with a variety of onboard weapons. Spy Hunter was produced in both sit-down and standard upright versions with the latter being more common. The game's controls consist of a steering wheel in the form of a futuristic aircraft-style yoke with several special-purpose buttons, a two-position stick shift (offering 'low' and 'high' gears), and a pedal used for acceleration.

Spy Hunter was a commercial success in American arcades, where it was one of the top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1984 and 1985. It was ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit computers, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Apple II, ColecoVision, MS-DOS, Nintendo Entertainment System, and BBC Micro. Spy Hunter was followed by Spy Hunter II, which added a 3D view and two-player split-screen play, a pinball tie-in, and a successor series of games bearing the Spy Hunter name. In addition, the NES received a sequel titled Super Spy Hunter.

Gameplay
Spy Hunter is a vertical scrolling driving game with the player in the role of a spy driving an armed sportscar. The object of the game is to travel the freeway destroying as many enemy vehicles as possible while protecting civilian vehicles. The game uses a top-down perspective. Controls consist of a two-position gearshift lever, a floor-mounted accelerator pedal, and a steering yoke with five buttons, and the cabinet also includes a dashboard with status lights.

The game begins with the player driving the fictitious G-6155 Interceptor, using the yoke, pedal, and gearshift to steer and control speed. The car is equipped with a machine gun that has unlimited ammunition and can be fired by pressing and holding the corresponding button on the yoke.

Various enemy vehicles try to destroy the player's car or force it off the road, including a helicopter that drops bombs from overhead. A counter increments the score while the car is moving and on the road. Additional points are earned by destroying enemy vehicles using weapons or forcing them off the road. After an initial lead-in time during which the player has an unlimited supply of cars, the player must earn extra cars by reaching score thresholds. Destroying non-enemy cars halts the score counter for a short while, and no points are scored whenever the player's car is off the road. The car can be destroyed by a hard collision with another vehicle, if it is hit by an enemy weapon (including the craters blasted into the road by the helicopter's bombs), or by running far enough off the roadway (or waterway).

Following periodic forks in the road, the player can enter new regions with different terrain or weather conditions. The player can also acquire special weapons by entering a weapons van, which appears in each new territory and can be periodically summoned by pressing its button on the yoke when its dashboard light is flashing. Available special weapons consist of oil slicks, smoke screens, and surface-to-air missiles; each is controlled by a different button, and the dashboard lights indicate which ones are available at any given time. Special weapons have a limited ammunition supply and are lost whenever the player's car is destroyed.

At certain points, the player will have the option to convert the car into a speedboat for a brief time by driving through a boathouse; at others, the player will be forced to make the transition. Enemy boats can attack from in front or behind, and the helicopter can drop bombs from above. While in speedboat mode, the oil slick becomes a flamethrower, while the smoke screen and missiles remain unchanged.

The game has no ending, and play continues until the player has lost all cars.

Development
Game designer George Gomez drew inspiration for the game from listening to an audio cassette tape of music from James Bond films. He designed the game with Tom Leon, with whom he had worked on Tron. Gomez sketched out the in-game road map on a long scroll of drawing paper and also came up with the idea of the weapons van. Originally the game was to be based directly on James Bond and have the "James Bond Theme" as in-game music, but the license could not be acquired. Instead, an electronic arrangement of Henry Mancini's theme to Peter Gunn plays throughout.

Reception
In the United States, it topped the RePlay upright arcade cabinet charts for four months during 1984, in April, September, October and November. It also topped the Play Meter dedicated cabinet charts for street locations in July 1984 and November 1984. It was listed by AMOA as one of America's top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1984, with AMOA later giving it the award for "most played" arcade video game of 1985 in the United States. In 1995, Flux magazine ranked the arcade version 29th on their Top 100 Video Games. They praised the game music, controls and gameplay.

Computer and Video Games scored the ColecoVision version 80% in 1989.

Legacy

A pinball table based on Spy Hunter was released in 1984 by Bally.

The arcade game was ported to the ColecoVision in January 1985.

The original Spy Hunter was followed by an arcade sequel, Spy Hunter II in 1987. It retained the "Peter Gunn" music and incorporated a cooperative two-player mode, but the top-down view was replaced with a perspective from behind and above the car.

After Japanese video game developer Sunsoft ported Spy Hunter to the Nintendo Entertainment System, the company created Battle Formula with similar gameplay. Sunsoft America signed a deal with Bally Midway to release it outside Japan as Super Spy Hunter.

The series was reprised in 2001 with SpyHunter developed by Paradigm Entertainment and published by Midway Games for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Microsoft Windows. A sequel developed by Angel Studios was released in 2003. Another reboot of the series was developed by TT Fusion for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita and released by Warner Bros. Interactive in October 2012.

Spy Hunter was cloned as Major Motion, released by Microdeal for the Atari ST in 1986. Agent Intercept (2019) for Apple Arcade is an homage to Spy Hunter.

In the 2015 toys-to-life video game Lego Dimensions, the Midway Arcade level pack includes a buildable Lego G-6155 Interceptor. A playable emulation of the arcade version is also included as part of the pack. The player character from Spy Hunter also appears as part of a sidequest where the player has to destroy 20 cars in the Super Sprint racetrack.

Re-releases
Spy Hunter was included in Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits: Volume 1 for Nintendo 64; Midway Arcade Treasures, a 2003 compilation of arcade games available for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows; Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play for PlayStation Portable; and Midway Arcade Origins, a 2012 compilation available for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

In popular culture

 * In the Murder, She Wrote episode titled "Hit, Run and Homicide", Jessica realizes the solution to the episode's mystery while playing Spy Hunter in the Cabot Cove grocery store.
 * "Dev Hunter", a game made in the style of Spy Hunter is included as an Easter egg in the first release of Microsoft Excel 2000. It requires DirectX to work. Shortly after Excel 2000's release, Microsoft officially banned Easter eggs from its non-game software.
 * In the Robot Chicken episode "Dragon Nuts", a spoof of Spy Hunter is featured in the sketch "Omaha's Number 1 News Team". The news station's traffic copter films two police cruisers in pursuit of the sports car from Spy Hunter, which failed to yield for a routine traffic stop. The sports car causes the cruisers to crash using its smoke screen generator, boards the weapon truck, equips itself with its surface-to-air missile launcher, uses it to destroy a helicopter, and the driver, tailed by several more police cruisers, escapes in a speedboat.
 * Spy Hunter is parodied in the Teen Titans Go! episode "Video Game References", as when it is Cyborg's turn to use the virtual reality system, he goes inside an arcade game called Pie Hunter, whose name is a reference to Spy Hunter.

Film adaptation
In the summer of 2003, Universal Pictures acquired the rights to the arcade game Spy Hunter from Midway Games. The following September, Universal signed actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to star in the film adaptation based on the game. Screenwriters Michael Brandt and Derek Haas were hired to write the screenplay, though a director had not been decided at the time. Spy Hunter was slated to begin its budgeted $90 million production in spring 2004 in time for a summer 2005 release. In January 2004, screenwriters Mark Swift and Damian Shannon replaced the original writing duo to rewrite the script, with production slated for June. By May, Universal Pictures acquired director John Woo to helm the project. In the same month, the previous screenwriters were replaced by screenwriter Zak Penn to rewrite the script once more. By August, production had been delayed, pushing Spy Hunter back to be released in summer 2006. In April 2005, Penn was replaced by screenwriter Stuart Beattie to rewrite the script. By May, however, director John Woo left the project due to scheduling conflicts. In August, Johnson said the film was still developing without a director. Pre-production work was underway with designs such as the morphing Interceptor vehicle driven by Alex Decker. Production was eventually halted for the time being, and Dwayne Johnson was detached from the project.

In May 2007, Paul W. S. Anderson was hired to replace Woo as the director with an all-new script unrelated to Nowhere to Run. He left the project a year later due to his commitment to Death Race 2 as a producer. In February 2013, Warner Bros. – the current theatrical distribution rights holders – announced that Ruben Fleischer was brought on board to direct from a screenplay by Carter Blanchard. In November 2015, Blanchard was replaced with the duo Neal Greaves and Sam Chalsen while Dan Lin and Roy Lee were set to produce the film. Whether Fleischer was still on board to direct remains to be seen.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Spy Hunter


text:
Benjamin Williams Leader

Benjamin Williams Leader (12 March 1831 – 22 March 1923) was a British landscape painter.

Early years and training
Leader was born in Worcester as Benjamin Leader Williams, the son, and third child of eleven children, of notable civil engineer Edward Leader Williams (1802–79) and Sarah Whiting (1801–88). His father was described as a "non-conformist dissenter" and his mother was a Quaker – their marriage in an Anglican church resulted in them being disowned by the Society of Friends.

Leader's father was a keen amateur artist – a friend of John Constable – and Benjamin would often accompany him on sketching trips along the banks of the River Severn. His brother, also Edward Leader Williams, later became a notable civil engineer who was knighted for his work, and is now mainly remembered for designing Manchester Ship Canal – which was to become the theme of Leader's largest painting. The family eventually came to reside at "Diglis House" – now a hotel.

Leader was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Worcester, and initially worked at his father's office as a draughtsman while studying art in the evenings at the Worcester School of Design. In his free time he also did a lot of "open air" landscape painting.

In 1854, at the age of 23, he was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy Schools in London, and, unusually, in his first year, had a picture accepted for exhibition there, Cottage children blowing bubbles, which was subsequently sold to an American buyer for £50 – a large sum in those days. Subsequently, his work appeared in every summer exhibition at the academy until 1922, when Leader was 91 years old. He also had some early works exhibited at the National Institution of Fine Arts, Portland Place in 1857–58.

Career
The inspiration for these early works was the countryside around Worcester itself, "the cottages, farmhouses, lanes, hedgerows and churches, so exceedingly picturesque and beautiful". However, Leader did not finish his course of studies at the R. A, nor did he need to – his paintings proved to be in great demand by wealthy buyers and he achieved an enviable degree of commercial success within only a few years of his first sale.

In 1857 he changed his name to Benjamin Williams Leader to distinguish himself from the many other painters with the surname Williams. In autumn of that year he travelled to Scotland, and painted A Quiet pool in Glen Falloch – exhibited at the R. A. in 1859. That year was his most successful yet with four paintings hung at the Academy and all sold, one of the buyers being the art dealer Agnew's who bought much of his work during his lifetime. Such was the demand that much of his best work now went to private galleries and was never publicly exhibited.

For the next 10 years, Leader divided his time painting between the Severn Valley, Worcestershire, and Wales, producing many canvases. Amongst them, Autumn's last Gleam was regarded as the best landscape in the Royal Academy's 1865 exhibition. In 1862 he moved home from Worcester to nearby Whittington (where he lived until 1889) which became a favourite sketching ground. In 1863, his work The Churchyard at Bettwys-y-Coed was purchased by the Prime Minister himself, William Gladstone.

In August 1876, Leader married fellow artist Mary Eastlake (born c. 1852) and they went on to have 6 children – the first, Benjamin Eastlake Leader (1877–1916), also an artist, was killed in action during World War I.

In 1881, February Fill Dyke was exhibited at the Royal Academy to great acclaim and Leader was made an associate (ARA) in 1883, becoming a Royal Academician (RA) in 1898.

Later life
In 1889, the family moved to "Burrows Cross", Shere near Guildford, Surrey, a large mansion designed by Norman Shaw RA – Leader lived here until the end of his life. In that same year he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, an honour secured on the recommendation of French artist Meissonier. In 1914 he was made an Honorary Freeman of the City of Worcester in recognition of his services (as a director of Royal Worcester Porcerlain and a native of the city).

Apart from his native Worcestershire and Wales, Leader also painted in other parts of Britain including Devon and Surrey and on the continent in Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium. He died in Surrey in 1923.

Work
Leader's early works bore the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites with their attention to fine detail and emphasis on painting from nature "en plein air". In his later years he adopted a looser style which was more impressionistic rather than being an exact copy of nature and this proved to be more popular.

Critic James Dafforne, writing in 1871 in The Art Journal said of Leader's style:

"he shows a fine sense of the beauties of nature, in her varied aspects, allied with much poetic feeling. Mr. Leader's style is a happy medium between excess of detail and over-elaboration on the one hand, and dash of execution on the other. There is enough of finish in his works to satisfy those who look for carefulness, but this quality does not degenerate into affected trivialities, while they show breadth of manner and brilliant effect by judicious arrangement of light and shade. His colouring, too, is generally pure and true to nature."

According to The Art Journal of 1901, amongst Leader's most popular works during his lifetime were, In Autumn there shall be light, February Fill Dyke and The Valley of the Llugwy. And amongst his best works at the time it considered: Romantic Tintern – dreaming in the moonlight, In the evening it shall be light and The Old Holyhead road through North Wales.

Leader's paintings are currently exhibited publicly at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Tate Gallery in London, Huddersfield Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and in Worcester (the largest collection of his works in Britain by far), Manchester and other regions in Britain. The Cambridge gallery in Santa Monica, US, also has several of his works, and he is included in the collection of the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin. Many are also held by private collectors. There is a memorial, designed by Ella Naper to Leader in St Buryan's Church in Cornwall. In 2003, A Summer's Day (1888) sold at auction for £168,000 at Sotheby's.

title: Benjamin Williams Leader


text:
Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu

Sido Murmu and Kanhu Murmu were the leaders of the Santhal rebellion (1855–1856), the rebellion in present-day Jharkhand and Bengal (Purulia, Birbhum and Bankura) in eastern India against both the British colonial authority and the corrupt zamindari system.

Rebellion
Santals lived in and depended on forests. In 1832, the British demarcated the Damin-i-koh region in present-day Jharkhand and invited Santhals to settle in the region. Due to promises of land and economic amenities a large numbers of Santhals came to settle from Cuttack, Dhalbhum, Manbhum, Hazaribagh, Midnapore etc. Soon, mahajans and zamindars as tax-collecting intermediaries deployed by British dominated the economy. Many Santals became victims of corrupt money lending practices. They were lent money at exorbitant rates when they never could repay then their lands were forcibly taken, they were forced into bonded labour. This sparked the Santal rebellion.

On 30 June 1855, two Santal rebel leaders, Sido Murmu and Kanhu Murmu (related as brother) along with Chand and Bairab, mobilized about 10,000 Santals and declared a rebellion against British colonists. The Santals initially gained some success but soon the British found out a new way to tackle these rebels. Instead, they forced them to come out of the forest. In a conclusive battle which followed, the British, equipped with modern firearms and war elephants, stationed themselves at the foot of the hill. When the battle began, the British officer ordered his troops to fire without loading bullets. The Santals, who did not suspect this trap set by the British war strategy, charged with full potential. This step proved to be disastrous for them. As soon as they neared the foot of the hill, the British army attacked with full power and this time they were using bullets. Although the revolution was suppressed, it marked a great change in the colonial rule and policy. The day is still celebrated among the Santal community.

Legacy
Sido Kanhu Murmu University is named upon them. Indian post also issued a ₹ 4 stamp in 2002 honouring them. There is also a Sido Kanhu Memorial Park in Ranchi, named in their honour. The Sido-Kanho Dahar at Esplanade in Central Kolkata is named after them.

title: Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu


text:
Douglas A. Rossman

Douglas Athon "Dag" Rossman (July 4, 1936 – July 23, 2015) was a U.S. herpetologist specializing in garter snakes. He studied at the University of Florida, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in 1961.

He was a professor of zoology at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

He co-authored The Amphibians and Reptiles of Louisiana (ISBN 0-8071-2077-4), and also The Garter Snakes: Evolution and Ecology (ISBN 0-8061-2820-8).

His wife, Nita Jane Rossman (born 1936), also has an interest in herpetology and even had a subspecies named after her: Thamnophis saurita nitae, a subspecies of the eastern ribbon snake. She had collected the holotype for this subspecies on a field trip with her husband for his dissertation research, and he named it in her honor.

Rossman also wrote The Nine Worlds: A Dictionary of Norse Mythology (1983), Where Legends Live: A Pictorial Guide to Cherokee Mythic Places (1988), and several other works related to Norse mythology.

Douglas Rossman is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of Mexican garter snake, Thamnophis rossmani.

title: Douglas A. Rossman


text:
Noctis Labyrinthus

is a region of Mars located in the Phoenicis Lacus quadrangle, between Valles Marineris and the Tharsis upland. The region is notable for its maze-like system of deep, steep-walled valleys. The valleys and canyons of this region formed by faulting and many show classic features of grabens, with the upland plain surface preserved on the valley floor. In some places the valley floors are rougher, disturbed by landslides, and there are places where the land appears to have sunk down into pit-like formations. It is thought that this faulting was triggered by volcanic activity in the Tharsis region. Research described in December 2009 found a variety of minerals, including clays, sulfates, and hydrated silicas, in some of the layers.

Context
Noctis Labyrinthus is located in the heart of Tharsis at the western end of the Valles Marineris, manifesting as a network of graben that extends in a spider-like network before coalescing into a coherent, relatively shallow graben swarm that curves in a semicircular fashion towards the south into the Claritas Rise. The graben are known as the Claritas Fossae beyond this point.

Geology
The Noctis Labyrinthus fracture zone is centered at the heart of the Tharsis Rise, dividing a plateau of Hesperian-Noachian age that is understood to be of a basaltic composition. The valleys of Noctis Labyrinthus fractured into three distinct trends (NNE/SSW, ENE/WSW, WNW/ESE) in an interlinked pattern that has been compared to the terrestrial fault systems that have formed over terrestrial domes. The formation of the fracture zone have been dated to the Late Hesperian based on crater counting age dates, concurrent with the formation of the lava plains of the adjacent Syria Planum province. Some researchers have modeled the formation of such chasmata on Mars on the propagation of simple graben underlain with dikes. As the underlying magma body drains, the chamber's pressure decreases and it begins to deflate. A chain of crater-like depressions forms, where the extent of the collapse dictated by how deeply the magma body is located. Noctis Labyrinthus is estimated to have experienced collapses from the drainage of magma chambers up to 5 km below the chasmata floors. In Noctis Labyrinthus in particular, some researchers have speculated that the fracture zone's corridors may connect deeper intrusive structures, forming a plumbing network more akin to the terrestrial Thulean mantle plume, which was responsible for the formation of the North Atlantic Igneous Province. In the chasmata of Noctis Labyrinthus, these pit crater chain collapse zones propagate directionally with a V-shaped tip, and can be used as an indicator of the direction into which magma withdraws from its underlying chamber. These V-tipped morphologies are generally found to propagate away from the center of the Tharsis Rise.

Other authors have proposed an alternate origin for Noctis Labyrinthus, linking its formation to the Valles Marineris and likening its initial formation to the expansion and collapse of a dense lava tube network. Supporters of the lava tube hypothesis note that no evidence of lateral lava flows from the chasmata have been observed, suggesting against the notion that dikes must be required to underlie the surface of the modern-day collapse features as there is no evidence that such a near-surface intrusion has breached the surface in the Noctis Labyrinthus region. Critics of a purely tectonic hypothesis have also noted that although pit crater chains (central to the diking hypothesis) are generally aligned and coincident with graben, they are occasionally found to bifurcate and to cross coeval graben in a perpendicular direction in the vicinity of Noctis Labyrinthus. Some authors have also proposed that Noctis Labyrinthus' chasmata may have formed due to extensional faulting in weakened rocks composed of interlayered tuff and lava flows, known to produce pit crater chains parallel to graben.

Other authors have suggested that phreatomagmatic processes were associated with the formation of the Noctis Labyrinthus chasmata. This hypothesis is not widely favored because chaos terrain morphology, proposed to form from this mechanism, is not found in the Noctis Labyrinthus fracture network. Chasmata and pit crater chains like those of Noctis Labyrinthus are likewise also not observed near areas where phreatomagmatic activity is strongly believed to have occurred, such as the Sisyphi Montes. Others have proposed that the chasmata of Noctis Labyrinthus are collapse features of a karstic nature, in which constituent carbonate rock is dissolved by meteoric water that has been acidified by acids originating in volcanic gases. This hypothesis has been challenged because carbonate spectral signatures have not been detected in the Noctis Labyrinthus network.

The walls of the valleys of Noctis Labyrinthus have been widened significantly by slumps that have canvassed the valley floors with debris taking the form of mudflows and boulders. Some authors have attributed the steady collapse of the valley walls to creep tied to thermal cycling, which could cause the repeated freezing and thawing of ground ice. Because of its location at the center of the Tharsis uplift, the melting associated with this creep could have been facilitated by increased heat flow to this area during periods of increased magmatic activity. No evidence of fluvial or aeolian erosion is observed in this region.

Mineralogical diversity
An unnamed depression near the southernmost extent of the Noctis Labyrinthus system, near the divide of Syria Planum and Sinai Planum and at the western end of the Valles Marineris, was found to be one of the most mineralogically diverse sites yet observed on the planet. These deposits, dated to the late Hesperian, post-date most Martian deposits of hydrated minerals. Based on CRISM spectral imagery, authors studying this depression have interpretatively identified the presence of:
 * iron-rich minerals such as hematite and goethite
 * Polyhydrated iron sulfates (copiapite and coquimbite), monohydrated iron sulfates (szomolnokite and possibly kieserite), hydroxylated iron sulfates (melanterite and hydronium jarosite), and possibly anhydrous iron sulfates (mikasaite).
 * aluminum phyllosilicates (kaolinites like hydrated halloysite/endeillite, or perhaps a combination of kaolinite and montmorillonite)
 * iron smectites (nontronite)
 * opaline silica (opal-A to the diagenetically-altered opal-CT), found to be comparable in spectral signature to some Icelandic volcanic glass lapilli

Of the hydrated iron sulfate minerals observed in the basin, some of them - such as ferricopiapite - are not stable in modern Martian conditions. However, researchers have suggested that they appear to coexist because the different deposits may have been exposed to the open atmosphere at different times, and some of these minerals do only fully dehydrate under Martian conditions over the course of many years. Furthermore, opaline silica deposits observed within this depression display spectra that may occasionally suggest interpersal with the iron sulfate mineral jarosite and the phyllosilicate mineral montmorillonite. The latter material is interpreted as such from an unusual doublet shape resolved on its spectra.

The minerals in this basin were most likely formed as a result of an initially acidic hydrothermal alteration of basaltic terrain, with the dissolution of plagioclase and calcium-rich pyroxenes increasing the pH steadily and causing the other minerals to precipitate. In this basin in particular, the mafic smectite layer overlays sulfates, aluminum phyllosilicate clays, and opaline silica deposits. The order of this layering is unique to the unnamed depression and is typically reversed in most Martian contexts, with the mafic smectites forming the bottom Noachian-age layer. Some researchers have counterproposed that rather than a sequentially reversed depositional event, this basin formed in a single, highly heterogeneous event. This is not necessarily indicative of a global alterational phenomenon, but is most likely tied to a localized heat source such as a volcano or an impact crater. In 2024, scientists Pascal Lee and Sourabh Shubham found evidence from CRISM, the HiRISE camera, and the Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter that this heat source was a volcano they dubbed Noctis Mons, which would be the seventh-highest mountain on Mars at 9028 m, and that the eastern part of its base was home to multiple glaciers with potential for hosting life, which could make it a highly valuable candidate target for astrobiology missions.

Calcium-rich pyroxenes have been spectrally observed elsewhere in the northern reaches of the Noctis Labyrinthus fracture zone.

Observational history
In 1980, Philippe Masson of the University of Paris-Sud offered an integrated interpretation of the structural geochronology of Valles Marineris, Noctis Labyrinthus, and Claritas Fossae in light of imagery from Mariner 9 and the Viking Orbiter.

In 2003, Daniel Mège (Pierre and Marie Curie University), Anthony C. Cook (University of Nottingham and the Smithsonian Institution), Erwan Garel (University of Maine in France), Yves Lagabrielle (University of Western Brittany), and Marie-Hélène Cormier (Columbia University) proposed a model for rifting on Mars initiated by the deflation of magma chambers, forming pit crater chains tracking directionally with simple graben. The researchers offered the first theoretical explanation as to how the chasmata of Noctis Labyrinthus formed.

In 2012, a collaboration of French researchers Patrick Thollot, Nicolas Mangold, Véronique Ansan, and Stéphan Le Mouélic (University of Nantes), along with a cadre of American researchers including John F. Mustard (Brown University), Ralph E. Milliken (University of Notre Dame), and Scott Murchie (Applied Physics Laboratory) reported on an unnamed basin in southeastern Noctis Labyrinthus showing an extremely wide assemblage of minerals known to form across a wide range of pH and water availability conditions. The pit is the only one of its kind in Noctis Labyrinthus and has a greater variability than almost any other location yet observed on the planet. Using CRISM spectral data on HiRISE visual images for context, the researchers proposed that the variability of this pit is a result of hydrothermal alteration, with the dissolution of extant calcium-rich minerals (e.g. plagioclase) diminishing the acidity and thus kinds of minerals observed. The variability was explained without evoking a global warm and wet Martian climatic condition for the period.

title: Noctis Labyrinthus


text:
The Island of Doctor Moreau

The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was published on 1 January 1896. The novel is set between 21 January 1887 to 5 January 1888. The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat. He is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, a mad scientist who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The novel deals with a number of themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, human interference with nature, and the effects of trauma. Wells described it as "an exercise in youthful blasphemy."

The Island of Doctor Moreau is a classic work of early science fiction and remains one of Wells's best-known books. The novel is the earliest depiction of the science fiction motif "uplift" in which a more advanced race intervenes in the evolution of an animal species to bring the latter to a higher level of intelligence. It has been adapted to film and other media on many occasions.

Plot
Edward Prendick is an Englishman with a scientific education who survives a shipwreck in the southern Pacific Ocean. A passing ship called Ipecacuanha takes him aboard and a man named Montgomery revives him. Prendick also meets a grotesque bestial native named M'ling who appears to be Montgomery's manservant. The ship is transporting a number of animals which belong to Montgomery, most strangely a puma. As they approach the island which is Montgomery's destination, the captain demands Prendick leave the ship with Montgomery. Montgomery explains that he will not be able to host Prendick on the island. Despite this, the captain leaves Prendick in a dinghy and sails away. Seeing that the captain has abandoned Prendick, Montgomery takes pity and rescues him. As ships rarely pass the island, Prendick will be housed in an outer room of an enclosed compound.

The island belongs to Dr. Moreau. Prendick remembers that he has heard of Moreau, formerly an eminent physiologist in London whose gruesome experiments in vivisection had been publicly exposed, and who fled Great Britain as a result of his exposure.

The next day, Moreau begins working on the puma, eventually revealed as being experimented into a woman. Prendick gathers that Moreau is performing a painful experiment on the animal and its anguished cries drive Prendick out into the jungle. While he wanders, he comes upon a group of people who seem human but have an unmistakable resemblance to swine. As he walks back to the enclosure, he suddenly realises he is being followed by a figure in the jungle. He panics and flees, and the figure gives chase. As his pursuer bears down on him, Prendick manages to stun him with a stone and observes that the pursuer is a monstrous hybrid of animal and man. When Prendick returns to the enclosure and questions Montgomery, Montgomery refuses to be open with him. After failing to get an explanation, Prendick finally gives in and takes a sleeping draught.

Prendick awakes the next morning with the previous night's activities fresh in his mind. Seeing that the door to Moreau's operating room has been left unlocked, he walks in to find a humanoid form lying in bandages on the table before he is ejected by a shocked and angry Moreau. He believes that Moreau has been vivisecting humans and that he is the next test subject. He flees into the jungle where he meets an Ape-Man who takes him to a colony of similarly half-human/half-animal creatures including a Sloth-Man. Their leader is a large grey unspecified creature named the Sayer of the Law who has him recite a strange litany called the Law that involves prohibitions against bestial behaviour and praise for Moreau:

Suddenly, Dr. Moreau bursts into the colony looking for Prendick, but Prendick escapes to the jungle. He makes for the ocean where he plans to drown himself rather than allow Moreau to experiment on him. Moreau explains that the creatures called the Beast Folk were not formerly men, but rather animals. Prendick returns to the enclosure where Moreau explains that he has been on the island for eleven years and has been striving to make a complete transformation of an animal to a human. He explains that while he is getting closer to perfection, his subjects have a habit of reverting to their animal form and behaviour. Moreau regards the pain he inflicts as insignificant and an unavoidable side effect in the name of his scientific experiments. He also states that pain is an animalistic instinct that one who is truly human cannot have, cutting his thigh with a penknife with no apparent reaction, to further prove his point.

One day, Prendick and Montgomery encounter a half-eaten rabbit. Since eating flesh and tasting blood are strong prohibitions, Dr. Moreau calls an assembly of the Beast Folk and identifies the Leopard-Man (the same one that chased Prendick the first time he wandered into the jungle) as the transgressor. Knowing that he will be sent back to Dr. Moreau's compound for more painful sessions of vivisection, the Leopard-Man flees. Eventually, the group corners him in some undergrowth, but Prendick takes pity and shoots him to spare him from further suffering. Prendick also believes that although the Leopard-Man was seen breaking several laws, such as drinking water bent down like an animal, chasing men (Prendick), and running on all fours, the Leopard-Man was not solely responsible for the deaths of the rabbits. It was also the Hyena-Swine, the next most dangerous Beast Man on the island. Dr. Moreau is furious that Prendick killed the Leopard-Man but can do nothing about the situation.

As time passes, Prendick becomes inured to the grotesqueness of the Beast Folk. However one day, the half-finished puma woman rips free of her restraints and escapes from the lab. Dr. Moreau pursues her, but the two end up fighting each other, leading to their mutual deaths. Montgomery breaks down and decides to share his alcohol with the Beast Folk. Prendick resolves to leave the island, but later hears a commotion outside in which Montgomery, his servant M'ling, and the Sayer of the Law die after a scuffle with the Beast Folk. At the same time, the compound burns down because Prendick has knocked over a lamp. With no chance of saving any of the provisions stored in the enclosure, Prendick realizes that Montgomery has also destroyed the only boats on the island during the night.

Prendick lives with the Beast Folk on the island for months after the deaths of Moreau and Montgomery. As the time goes by, the Beast Folk increasingly revert to their original animal instincts, beginning to hunt the island's rabbits, returning to walking on all fours, and leaving their shared living areas for the wild. They cease to follow Prendick's instructions. Eventually, the Hyena-Swine kills Prendick's faithful Dog-Man companion created from a St. Bernard. With help from the Sloth Creature, Prendick shoots the Hyena-Swine in self-defence.

Prendick's efforts to build a raft have been unsuccessful. Luckily for him, a lifeboat that carries two corpses drifts onto the beach (perhaps the captain of the ship that picked Prendick up and a sailor). Prendick uses the boat to leave the island and is picked up three days later. When he tells his story, he is thought to be mad. So he feigns amnesia.

Upon his return to England, Prendick is no longer comfortable in the presence of humans, all of whom seem to him to be about to revert to an animal state. He leaves London and lives in near-solitude in the countryside, devoting himself to chemistry and astronomy in the studies of which he finds some peace.

Humans

 * Edward Prendick – The narrator and protagonist
 * Dr. Moreau – A mad vivisectionist who has fled upon his experiments being exposed and has moved to a remote island in the Pacific Ocean to pursue his research of perfecting his Beast Folk
 * Montgomery – Dr. Moreau's assistant and Prendick's rescuer. A physician who enjoyed a measure of happiness in England, he is an alcoholic who feels some sympathy for the Beast Folk.

Beast Folk
The Beast Folk are animals which Moreau has experimented upon, giving them human traits via vivisection for which the surgery is extremely painful. They include:

 * M'ling – Montgomery's servant who does the cooking and cleaning. Moreau combined a bear, a dog, and an ox to create him. As Prendick describes M'ling, he states that M'ling is a "complex trophy of Moreau's skill, a bear, tainted with dog and ox, and one of the most elaborately made of all the creatures". He has glowing eyes and furry ears. M'ling later dies protecting Montgomery from the other Beast Folk on the beach.
 * Sayer of the Law – A large, grey-haired animal of unspecified combinations (though Edward notices its gray hair is similar to that of a Skye Terrier) that recites Dr. Moreau's teachings about being men to the other Beast Folk. The Sayer of the Law serves as a governor and a priest to the Beast Folk. He is later killed in an unseen scuffle between Montgomery, M'ling, and the Beast Folk.
 * Ape-Man – An unspecified ape creature that considers himself equal to Prendick and refers to himself and Prendick as "Five Men", because they both have five fingers on each hand, which is uncommon among the Beast Folk. He is the first Beast Man other than M'ling to whom Prendick speaks. He has what he refers to as "Big Thinks" which on his return to England, Prendick likens to a priest's sermon at the pulpit.
 * Sloth Creature – A small, pink sloth-based creation described by Prendick as resembling a flayed child. He is one of the more relatively benign creatures and helps Prendick kill the Hyena-Swine before fully regressing.
 * Hyena-Swine – A carnivorous hybrid of spotted hyena and pig who becomes Prendick's enemy in the wake of Dr. Moreau's death. He is later killed by Prendick in self-defence.
 * Leopard-Man – An African leopard-based rebel who breaks the Law by running on all fours, drinking from the stream, and chasing Prendick. The Leopard-Man is killed by Prendick to spare him further pain, much to the dismay of Dr. Moreau.
 * Ox-Men – A group of gray ox-based creatures who appear twice, first when Prendrick is introduced to the Beast Folk and then again after Montgomery's death.
 * Satyr-Man – A hybrid of a goat and an ape. Prendrick describes him as unsettling and "Satanic" in form.
 * Swine-Men and Swine-Woman – A group of pig-based Beast Folk who appear during Prendrick's introduction to the Beast Folk.
 * Mare-Rhinoceros Creature – A hybrid between a horse and a Sumatran rhinoceros who appeared during Prendrick's introduction to the Beast Folk.
 * Wolf-Men and Wolf-Women – A group of wolf-based Beast Folk who appear during Prendrick's introduction to the Beast Folk.
 * Bear-Bull Man - A hybrid of a bear and a cattle who appeared during Pendrick's introduction to the Beast Folk.
 * Dog-Man – A Beast Man created from a St. Bernard who, near the end of the book, becomes Prendick's faithful companion. He is so like a domestic dog in character that Prendick is barely surprised when he reverts to a more animalistic form. The Dog-Man is later killed by the Hyena-Swine.
 * Fox-Bear Woman – A female hybrid of a red fox and a grizzly bear who passionately supports the Law. Prendick quickly takes a dislike to her and described her as being evil-smelling.
 * Wolf-Bear Man - A hybrid of a wolf and a bear who was mentioned during the hunt for the Leopard-Man as hunting his fellow Beast-Folk a wee-bit too much.
 * Half-Finished Puma-Woman – The last beast-person created by Moreau. She is halfway through her process of being turned into one of the Beast Folk, but was in so much pain from the surgery that she uses her strength to break free of her restraints and escape. Moreau then chases after her with a revolver. He and the creature fight each other which ends in a mutual kill.
 * Ox-Boar Man - A hybrid of an ox and a boar who appeared briefly following the death of Moreau.
 * Ocelot-Man – One of the smaller creatures which briefly appears after Moreau's death and is shot by Montgomery during his scuffle with the Beast Folk on the beach.

Historical context
At the time of the novel's publication in 1896, there was growing discussion in Europe of the possibility of the degeneration of the human race. Increasing opposition to animal vivisection led to formation of groups like the National Anti-Vivisection Society in 1875, and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection in 1898. The Island of Dr. Moreau reflects the ethical, philosophical, and scientific concerns and controversies raised by these themes and the ideas of Darwinian evolution which were so disrupting to social norms in the late 1800s.

In his preface to The Works of H.G. Wells, Volume 2, The Atlantic Edition (1924), Wells explains that The Island of Dr. Moreau was inspired by the trial of Oscar Wilde.

"'The Island of Doctor Moreau' was written in 1895, and it was begun while 'The Wonderful Visit' was still in hand. It is a theological grotesque, and the influence of Swift is very apparent in it. There was a scandalous trial about that time, the graceless and pitiful downfall of a man of genius, and this story was the response of an imaginative mind to the reminder that humanity is but animal rough-hewn to a reasonable shape and in perpetual internal conflict between instinct and injunction. This story embodies this ideal, but apart from this embodiment it has no allegorical quality. It is written just to give the utmost possible vividness to that conception of men as hewn and confused and tormented beasts. When the reader comes to read the writings upon history in this collection, he will find the same idea of man as a re-shaped animal no longer in flaming caricature, but as a weighed and settled conviction."

The Island of Doctor Moreau in popular culture
The novel has been adapted to films and other media on multiple occasions. In addition, the novel has influenced many fictional works. The following are some of the works which are related to the character of Dr. Moreau and his story:

In literature

 * Maurice Renard's 1908 French novel Le Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu was inspired by The Island of Doctor Moreau, and dedicated to H. G. Wells by its author.
 * In Mikhail Bulgakov's novel Heart of a Dog (1925) a Moscow surgeon Dr. Preobrazhensky transplants human organs into the body of homeless dog. As a result, the animal transforms into the man, Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov. In the end of the novel Preobrazhensky performs another operation to return him to the dog's state.
 * The popular novel of horror and mystery The Strange Tale of Panorama Island (1926) by the author Ranpo Edogawa, was inspired by Wells novel.
 * The title figure in Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares novel The Invention of Morel (1940), a scientific genius of questionable morality, alludes to Wells's Moreau.
 * In chapter 1 of Daniel Pinkwater's novel Lizard Music (1976), Victor watches a late-night film on TV which is identified in chapter 2 as The Island of Dr Morbo.
 * Moreau's Other Island (1980) by Brian Aldiss is an updating of the original to a near-future setting. US Under-Secretary of State Calvert Madle Roberts is cast ashore on the eponymous island where he discovers the cyborgised Thalidomide victim Mortimer Dart carrying on Moreau's work. It transpires that Dart's work is intended to produce a 'replacement' race that can survive a post-nuclear environment, and that Roberts approved Dart's funding.
 * JLA: Island of Dr. Moreau (2002) is a one-shot tale where Dr. Moreau creates an animal version of the Justice League. As in the novel they start returning to their animal behavior.
 * Dr. Franklin's Island (2002) by Ann Halam is a loose adaptation of the story, in which the eponymous scientist performs transgenic experiments upon the narrator and two other survivors of a plane crash, transforming them into mostly-animal hybrids.
 * In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II (2002-2003), Moreau is relocated to the South Downs by the British Government, where he continues his experiments, creating a number of children's characters, such as Rupert Bear, Mr. Toad and Peter Rabbit. He is also stated to be the uncle of the painter Gustave Moreau.
 * In Moon Over Soho (2011) by Ben Aaronovitch, the investigation into the Faceless Man uncovers a deserted sex parlor which the malign wizard's predecessor had operated in the 1970s. Upon learning that it had specialized in magically-altered human "chimeras" with animalistic features, Peter nicknames it the "Strip Club of Dr. Moreau".
 * Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr. Moreau (2012) by Guy Adams puts Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson on the trail of several of the hybrids on the loose in London.
 * The Madman's Daughter trilogy (2013) by Megan Shepherd tells the story of Dr. Moreau's daughter Juliet. Each book is based on a different classic novel: the first book is based on this novel by Wells, the second one on Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and the final book is based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818).
 * In chapter 61 of The Fallen (2013), book five of Charlie Higson's post-apocalyptic horror series, The Enemy, the expedition party from the museum encounters a strange set of malformed children at the biomedical company Promithios, who recite the Litany of the Law.
 * The Isles of Dr Moreau (2015) in Heather O'Neill's short story collection Daydreams of Angels tells of a grandfather who, when he was young, meets an eccentric, albeit humane scientist named Dr Moreau on "the Isle of Noble and Important and Respectable Betterment of Homo sapiens and Their Consorts". Moreau's experiments involve combining animal DNA with human DNA and the story unfolds as the grandfather meets (and dates) several of these humanoid creatures.
 * In Wonder Woman Chapter 76 (2016), Greek goddess Aphrodite is reading a book with the title The Island of Dr. Moreau.
 * The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter (2017) by Theodora Goss features the half-finished puma woman from The Island of Dr Moreau as one of its main characters, Catherine.
 * The Daughter of Doctor Moreau (2022) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a novel billed as "a dreamy reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico."

In music

 * The song Toes by the alternative rock band Glass Animals is based on the book's story.
 * The music video for the song Eaten Alive by Diana Ross, with Ross playing the role of the Panther Woman.
 * The song No Spill Blood by Oingo Boingo.
 * The song Island of Lost Souls by The Meteors.
 * The debut studio album by the American new wave band Devo was titled Q. Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978) from a line in the litany of the Law, spoken by the Speaker of the Law to the Beast Folk.
 * Hip Hop group House of Pain took their name from the novel.
 * The sophomore studio album by the nu metal band Tallah titled The Generation of Danger (2022) is, as stated by vocalist Justin Bonitz, inspired by the book's story.

In radio

 * David Calcutt adapted the story for a BBC Radio 4 Saturday Night Theatre dramatization in 1990, with Kenneth Colley as Montgomery, Garard Green as Moreau, Terry Molloy as M'Ling, Kim Wall as Prentice and Neal Foster as Prentice's Nephew.
 * Jonathan Pryce read a five-part abridgment for Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.
 * In 2017, Big Finish Productions adapted the story into a two-hour audio drama starring Ronald Pickup as Doctor Moreau with John Heffernan as Edward Prendick and Enzo Cilenti as Montgomery.

In television
Episodes
 * The American animated TV show South Park features a recurring character ‘Dr. Alphonse Mephesto’ (from 1997) who seems to be based on the 1996 Brando portrayal of Dr. Moreau, a mad scientist who experiments on animals and is even the president of the North American Marlon Brando Lookalike Association (NAMBLA).
 * The "Thriller Bark" (2008) story arc in the anime series One Piece draws heavily from the novel. It includes a surgeon named Dr. Hogback who disappears from the public eye and begins work on animal-human hybrid zombies as well as several characters who are direct references to the Beast Folk from the novel like Absalom who has the snout of a lion, the skin of an elephant, and the combined muscles of a bear and a gorilla.
 * The Canadian cartoon series Spliced (2009–2010) is a lighthearted take on the concept.
 * In Orphan Black (2013–2017), a BBC America sci-fi/thriller series, the book plays an important role beginning in the third season. An old copy of the book contains Professor Duncan's cryptic key to human cloning. The fourth season establishes an island similar to Moreau's, called Westmoreau, referred to in the series as simply "The Island of Dr. Moreau." On the island, a Dr. Moreau type figure, P.T. Westmoreland, is the reclusive head of a mysterious and powerful scientific elite who performs experiments on human subjects. Much of the fifth season is set on the island.
 * The 2020 Japanese anime series BNA: Brand New Animal appears to have been influenced by the novel with the concept of a place inhabited by human-animal hybrids with lab experiments about the biology of the human-animal hybrids.
 * In the episode "What's Michelangelo Good For?" (1990) of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dr. Lesseau is a scientist who creates hybrids.
 * The Batman: The Animated Series episode "Tyger, Tyger" (1992) borrows heavily from the story where a mad scientist named Dr. Emile Dorian (voiced by Joseph Maher) creates the cat-like artificial lifeform Tyger, spliced the DNA of a human and a gorilla to create his henchman Garth, and turns Selina Kyle into an actual cat woman.
 * The third-season Sliders episode "This Slide of Paradise" (1997) features an island where a scientist (played by Michael York, co-star of the 1977 film adaptation) has created human-animal hybrids.
 * In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Begotten" (1997), changeling policeman Odo deplores the experimental investigation of his physiology during infancy by his teacher Doctor Mora.
 * In the episode "Brainwashed" (1998) of Pinky and the Brain, Snowball guides the protagonists to the lair of Dr. Mordaux.
 * The Johnny Bravo episode "The Island of Mrs. Morceau" (2002) features a scientist named Dr. More (voiced by Jennifer Hale) who turns people into animal hybrids where she turns Johnny into a hamster hybrid.
 * The Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "Klub Katz" (2000) is a spoof on the novel, but the victims are turned into machines instead of animals.
 * The Simpsons' annual Halloween special adapted the novel as a segment in their "Treehouse of Horror XIII" episode (2002) called "The Island of Dr. Hibbert", in which the doctor invites unsuspecting Springfield residents to his island resort, and turns them into human-animal hybrids including Homer to a walrus, Marge to a panther (in a reference to Lota from the original Island of Lost Souls movie), Lisa to a hawk, Bart to a spider, Maggie to an giant anteater, Mr. Burns to a fox, Waylon Smithers into a flamingo, Chief Wiggum to a pig, Groundskeeper Willie to an orangutan, Ned Flanders to a cow-centaur, and Comic Book Guy to a faun-themed parody of the Sayer of the Law.
 * In The Mighty Boosh episode "Mutants" (2004), the zoo animals are mysteriously disappearing, and we discover that Bainbridge and Bob Fossil have been splicing the animals together in a secret lab.
 * The episode "Venture Libre" (2013) of The Venture Bros. features an island that Dr. Venture visits filled with, among other strange creatures, animal-human hybrids resulting from unethical experiments performed by unscrupulous scientists.
 * In the anime and manga series Vanitas no Carte there's an antagonistic character named Dr. Moreau, a mad scientist inspired in the same Moreau from the novel.

In cinema

 * Ile d'Epouvante (1913, The Island of Terror), a French silent film (also spelled L'Ile d'Epouvante and Isle d'epouvante). The 23-minute, two-reel film, directed by Joe Hamman in 1911 was then released in 1913. By late 1913, the film had been picked up by US distributor George Kleine and renamed The Island of Terror for its release in Chicago.
 * Die Insel der Verschollenen (1921), a German silent adaption directed by Urban Gad.
 * Island of Lost Souls (1932), with Charles Laughton as Doctor Moreau, and Bela Lugosi as the Sayer of the Law. In the film, Dr. Moreau creates his Beast Folk through "plastic surgery, blood transfusions, gland extracts, and ray baths". In addition, the Sayer of the Law is depicted as a wolf-like humanoid. Another addition is Lota (Kathleen Burke), a woman Moreau derived from a panther, set upon to mate with Edward (Richard Arlen), so Moreau can find out whether or not she can bear human-children. Lota was not a character from the original novel (the closest is a half-finished puma woman), but filmmakers of future adaptations apparently loved her so much, they included a feline love interest in their adaptations, which include Barbara Carrera as Maria in the 1977 version, and Fairuza Balk as Aissa in the 1996 version.
 * Terror Is a Man (1959), with Francis Lederer, Greta Thyssen, and Richard Derr. This Filipino film, directed by Gerardo de Leon, was re-released in the United States years later as Blood Creature.
 * At the age of 13, Tim Burton made an amateur adaptation on Super-8 of Wells' novel as The Island of Doctor Agor (1971).
 * The Twilight People (1972), starring John Ashley and with an early role for African-American actress Pam Grier, is Eddie Romero's version of the original story.
 * The Island of Dr Moreau, a 1977 film with Burt Lancaster and Michael York. In this film, Dr. Moreau injects the animals with a serum containing human genetic material. The Sayer of the Law is depicted as a humanoid wild boar.
 * The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), a New Line-produced film with Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis, Fairuza Balk, and Ron Perlman. In this film, Dr. Moreau introduces human DNA into the animals in his possession to make them more human. The film's version of the Sayer of the Law is depicted as a blind sheep/goat-like hybrid. Unlike the books and earlier films, the Sayer of the Law survives the ordeal and sees off the main protagonist.
 * The sequel Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002), a lunatic scientist named Romero (portrayed by Steve Buscemi) creates miniature hybrid animals on a mysterious island where technology fails to work. Unfortunately, some of them grow upon being discovered to an experimental growth formula, causing Romero to remain in his lab to avoid being eaten. These creations include Spider Monkeys (a half-monkey half-spider creature with a drider-like appearance), Slizards (a lizard with a snake head and neck), Sporks (a pig/stork variation of a flying pig), Turtleroos (a creature with the head and shell of a turtle and the body of a kangaroo), Bullfrogs (a cattle with the hindquarters of a frog), Catfish (a cat with the head and tail of a fish), Horse-Flies (a horse with the head and wings of a house fly), Sheepdogs (a sheep with the head and legs of a bulldog), and Tiger Sharks (a tiger with the head and back fin of a bull shark). After having been briefly captured by Donnagan Giggles, Romero is confronted by his creations who don't eat him as he had feared. The hybrids help thwart Donnagan's plot to use the Transmooker, where the Spork snatches it and a Slizzard eats it.
 * The film Dr. Moreau's House of Pain (2004), made by cult horror studio Full Moon Pictures, is billed as a sequel to the novel.
 * The 2013 film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 shares similarities with the novel.
 * Christopher Lambert plays Dr. Moreau in the 2018 Italian horror film La Voce del Lupo.

In gaming

 * In the 1997 video game Fallout, a grossly mutated human by the moniker of "Master" shares similar characteristics with Doctor Moreau, including his original surname.
 * Dungeons & Dragons has an antagonist named Frantisek Markov who lives on an isle in Ravenloft (1983–2021) where he experiments on animals to make them human.
 * The 2000 video game Metal Slug 3's first mission is an island called "Pallas Island" which was also called "Dr. Moreau's Island" featuring mutated animals albeit as a result of nuclear experimentation.
 * The 2003 strategy video game Impossible Creatures, centered around creating armies out of animal hybrids, was largely inspired by the novel.
 * Vivisector: Beast Within is a Ukrainian developed first-person shooter game released in the CIS in 2005 and later in the rest of Europe in 2006. The game is heavily inspired by the novel, originally developed as a Duke Nukem title.
 * The video game Champions Online (2009) features Dr. Phillippe Moreau, the grandson of Dr. Henry Moreau and member of the terrorist organization VIPER (short for Venomous Imperial Party of the Eternal Reptile). Phillippe used his technology to perfect his father's work where he created the Manimals.
 * Doctor Merlot, the main villain of the 2016 game RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, is heavily inspired by Doctor Moreau.
 * Resident Evil Village (2021) features as one of its primary antagonists a mutant named Salvatore Moreau. In-game journal entries describe his experiments on other human subjects with the same parasitic organism that caused his grotesque transformation.
 * Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (2005) features Dr. M as the game’s main antagonist, who has turned the island housing the Cooper Vault into a private fortress, complete with mutant animal guards patrolling the island. Dr. M is himself an anthropomorphic mandrill, who has grafted his own body with cybernetic machinery to allow him to control his mutant creations.
 * In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015) Tomas Moreau, a character in the game, attempts to reverse witcher mutations on his son. Instead, the experiments strengthen the mutations, making Jerome less human.
 * In the Mass Effect 3: Citadel DLC (2013), pilot Jeff "Joker" Moreau makes a reference to the book in a fictional story he tells about defeating a number of soldiers, in which he says "You just landed on the island of Dr. Me!"
 * In Honkai: Star Rail, the character Ruan Mei is a scientist who creates life forms to try and find the origin of life and her creations would eventually form their own civilisation in Seclusion Zone in Herta Space Station.

Scientific plausibility
In the short essay "The Limits of Individual Plasticity" (1895), H.G. Wells expounded upon his firm belief that the events depicted in The Island of Doctor Moreau are entirely possible should such vivisective experiments ever be tested outside the confines of science fiction. Until recently, modern medicine has shown that non-human animals lack the necessary brain structure to emulate human faculties like speech. In addition, immune responses to foreign tissues make transplantation within one species very complicated, let alone between species. However, a team of researchers at Stanford University have successfully transplanted a cluster of living human brain cells from a dish in the lab to the brain of a newborn rat to study neurological conditions such as autism, ADHD, and schizophrenia.

title: The Island of Doctor Moreau


text:
Southeast Missouri State University

Southeast Missouri State University (Southeast or SEMO) is a public university in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. In addition to the main campus, the university has four regional campuses offering full degree programs and a secondary campus housing the Holland College of Arts and Media. The university is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.

Enrolling 9,677 students, Southeast offers more than 175 undergraduate degree programs and 75 graduate programs. Originally founded in 1873 as a normal school, the university has a traditional strength in teacher education. Five academic units make up the university: the Holland College of Arts and Media; the Harrison College of Business and Computing; the College of Education, Health, and Human Studies; College of Humanities and Social Sciences; and the College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The university's thirteen athletics teams compete in the Ohio Valley Conference of NCAA Division I and are known as the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks. The football team participates as part of the Football Championship Subdivision of Division I.

History
Southeast Missouri State University was founded in 1873 when a group of locally prominent businessmen and politicians successfully lobbied the State of Missouri to designate Cape Girardeau as the home of the Third District Normal School. Originally known as Southeast Missouri State Normal School, the first classes were taught at the nearby Lorimier School until April 1875, when the first university building was completed.

The university has had five names in its history:
 * Southeast Missouri State Normal School, 1873–1881
 * Missouri State Normal School—Third District, 1881–1919
 * Southeast Missouri State Teachers College, 1919–1946
 * Southeast Missouri State College, 1946–1973
 * Southeast Missouri State University, 1973–present

The Normal building was described by Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi (1883):

"There was another college higher up on an airy summit—a bright new edifice, picturesquely and peculiarly towered and pinnacled—a sort of gigantic casters, with the cruets all complete." The original Normal School building burned down on April 8, 1902, and was replaced in 1906 by Academic Hall, the school's domed landmark building. Academic Hall was designed by Jerome Bibb Legg, who also designed the St. Louis Exposition and Music Hall, and it includes light fixtures from the 1904 World's Fair. Academic Hall today stands at the center of campus and is home to the university's administrative offices as well as several classrooms and an auditorium.

In the 1950s, Southeast Missouri State College had an enrollment of approximately 1,600 students. Enrollment steadily increased to more than 7,000 students in the 1970s due to low tuition costs, aggressive recruiting, and the construction of Interstate 55 between St. Louis and Cape Girardeau. The college also moved away from its focus on training teachers and began to offer courses of study in business, nursing, and the liberal arts. Due to the expansion of curriculum and student body population, the college became Southeast Missouri State University in 1972. The size of the campus also grew rapidly in this same period. In 1956, the institution had ten buildings on campus. By 1975, the number had increased to twenty-two buildings.

In 1998, the university acquired the former St. Vincent's Seminary located in downtown Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi River. This property has been redeveloped as the River Campus, which opened in Fall 2007 and houses the Earl and Margie Holland School of Visual and Performing Arts. The construction of the River Campus began to shift the institution's focus towards the visual and performing arts, which today forms the basis of the university's statewide reputation.

Missouri State Normal School Third District President John Sephus McGhee established the University Schools on June 15, 1896. This allowed prospective teachers to gain real-world teaching experience while earning their degrees. As the university expanded its curriculum and extra-curricular activities, so did the University Schools. In 1903, as recent construction allowed for more space for university classes, the training school was able to expand its class sizes as well. The University Schools consisted of an elementary, junior high, and high school. The University Schools closed at the end of the 1986–1987 school year due to increasing costs.

University presidents

 * 1)  Lucius H. Cheney (1873–76)
 * 2)  Alfred Kirk (1876–77)
 * 3)  Charles Henry Dutcher (1877–81)
 * 4)  Richard Chapman Norton (1881–93)
 * 5)  Willard Duncan Vandiver (1893–97)
 * 6)  John Sephus McGhee (1897–99)
 * 7)  Washington Strother Dearmont (1899–1921)
 * 8)  Joseph Archibald Serena (1921–33)
 * 9)  Walter Winfield Parker (1933–56)
 * 10)  Mark F. Scully (1956–75)
 * 11)  Robert E. Leestamper (1975–79)
 * 12)  Bill W. Stacy (1979–89)
 * 13)  Robert W. Foster (1989–90)
 * 14)  Kala Stroup (1990–95)
 * 15)  Bill Atchley (1995–96)
 * 16)  Dale F. Nitzschke (1996–99)
 * 17)  Kenneth W. Dobbins (1999–2015)
 * 18)  Carlos Vargas-Aburto (2015–present)

River Campus
The River Campus is home to the Earl and Margie Holland School of Visual and Performing Arts. The facilities incorporate two buildings: the Seminary Building and the Cultural Arts Center. These buildings contain the Donald C. Bedell Performance Hall, the Rosemary Berkel and Harry L. Crisp II Museum, the John and Betty Glenn Convocation Center, the Wendy Kurka Rust Flexible Theatre, the Robert F. and Gertrude L. Shuck Music Recital Hall, and the River Campus Art Gallery. It is home to the departments of Art, Music, Theater and Dance. The River Campus hosts many performance series: the Theater and Dance Series, the Symphony Series, the Southeast Ensemble Series, the Jazz Series, the Faculty Recital Series and Sundays at Three chamber music Series. The Rosemary Berkel and Harry L. Crisp II Museum and Art Gallery features rotating touring exhibitions.

Regional campuses
Southeast and Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff agreed in 2004 to share higher education facilities at three locations in southeast Missouri: Sikeston, Kennett, and Malden. In spring 2005, Southeast eliminated Three Rivers courses from those centers, citing failure of the community college to pay approximately $10,000 in facilities-use fees. Southeast took over all course offerings at the centers, which have subsequently been named regional campuses of Southeast Missouri State University. Three Rivers Community College filed a lawsuit in March 2005 against Southeast. The lawsuit was subsequently dropped, and Southeast and Three Rivers recently announced plans to develop a joint bachelor's degree program in social work. Southeast now operates four regional campuses, at Kennett, Malden, Sikeston, and Perryville.

Athletics
Southeast Missouri State has been a member of NCAA Division I (Division I FCS for football) since moving up from Division II in 1991. As a result of the promotion in classifications, Southeast Missouri State left the Division II athletic conference Mid–America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) and joined the Division I Ohio Valley Conference (OVC).

List of fraternities and sororities
There are numerous fraternities and sororities affiliated with the school.

Arrow student newspaper
The Arrow is the university's student newspaper. The second editor of the Capaha Arrow was Rush Limbaugh Sr. who became a nationally recognized Missouri attorney and practiced law in Cape Girardeau until just before his passing at the age of 104 in 1996; he was the grandfather of the media personality Rush Limbaugh. After the university changed its mascot from Indians/Otahkians to Redhawks, the newspaper dropped Capaha and is now known as simply The Arrow. It is still run by students in the Department of Mass Media and publishes a biweekly newspaper distributed throughout campus. Microfilm and print copies of the Capaha Arrow dating back to the first issue are available at Kent Library and Special Collections and Archives, and some stories are also put on The Arrow website.

Notable alumni

 * 1941 Velmer A. Fassel, scientist
 * 1955 Kenneth Dement, football player, lawyer, and local community leader
 * 1960 Dick Hantak, football referee
 * 1960 Ken Iman, football player
 * 1961 Roy Thomas, comic book writer and editor
 * 1968 Clyde A. Vaughn, Director of the Army National Guard
 * 1969 James T. Conway, United States Marine
 * 1974 Linda Godwin, astronaut
 * 1976 Peter Kinder, politician
 * 1979 Steve Tappmeyer, basketball coach
 * 1980 Desi Barmore (born 1960), basketball player
 * 1987 Cedric Kyles, entertainer
 * 1994 Steven Tilley, Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives
 * 1994 Kerry Robinson, former Major League outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals
 * 1998 Angel Rubio, football player
 * 2000 Jason Witczak, football player
 * 2001 Neal E. Boyd, 2008 winner of America's Got Talent
 * 2003 Willie Ponder, football player
 * 2004 Eugene Amano, football player
 * 2005 Dan Connolly, football player
 * 2006 Edgar Jones, football player
 * 2007 Joe Tuineau, rugby player
 * 2014 Tyler Stone (born 1991), basketball player in the Israeli Basketball Premier League
 * 2016 Joey Lucchesi, baseball player
 * 2017 Antonius Cleveland, basketball player
 * 2018 Drew Forbes, football player
 * 2021 Dylan Dodd, baseball player

title: Southeast Missouri State University