Courtesy of Dr. Hirotaka Sato and Prof. Michel M. Maharbiz, UC Berkeley
Bringing new meaning to the phrase "fly on the wall," researchers at Berkeley have created a live "cyborg" beetle that can be wirelessly controlled using a laptop. Six electrodes, implanted during the insect's pupation, control flight and left/right steering movements. The DARPA-funded project anticipates a future in which the bionic beetles can also be outfitted with on-board sensors to relay information back to the controller.
These cybernetic creatures are just the latest in a long history of animals pressed into military service.
 Nervous Gerbil
With their unique ability to smell increased adrenalin in sweat, gerbils had been slated to detect spies and terrorists since WWII. The Israeli internal security force put gerbils to work at the Tel Aviv airport, but cancelled the project when the furry creatures implicated innocent passengers who were just anxious about flying.  Holy bat bomb!
A U.S. plan to drop live bats outfitted with incendiary devices over Japan during WWII hit a snag in testing when the bats accidentally set fire to a general's car and a couple of hangars at an Army Air Force base. The Navy took over the project next but eventually scraped it.  Acoustic kitty
The CIA inserted a transmitter and battery pack in a cat and put a microphone in its ear and an antenna on its tail, to eavesdrop on Soviets during the Cold War. On its first test run, the cat was run over by a taxi before reaching the intended target.
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 Mammal menace
Perhaps the most literal U.S. Marines, sea lions were trained to detect potential terrorist divers in the shallow waters surrounding U.S. Navy bases. For deep-water patrol, the Navy trained dolphins, and in 2003 deployed a team along the Arabian Gulf to identify and mark potential terrorist threats to military ships.  Nazi pigeons
SS chief Heinrich Himmler is believed to have used carrier pigeons to obtain pre-invasion information from agents in Britain. According to BBC News, Britain's MI5 responded by training peregrine falcons to take down the feathered fascists. At least two Nazi pigeons became prisoners of war.  Dog rain
Brian the Alsatian dog landed in Normandy with Britain's 13th Battalion Airborne Division during WW II. According to his Dickin Medal citation, Brian became a fully qualified paratrooper after completing the required number of jumps. |
