English science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, wrote a short story, 'Sentinel of Eternity' (1951), about a monolith left by a highly technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilization, which enhanced the brains of the animals that encountered it. Film director, Stanley Kubrick, collaborated with Clarke to produce a 1968 movie version of the story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which apes are depicted killing an animal resembling a pig from the...