Researchers this past month have presented a paper at scientific journal, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech 2023 and claim that they have turned dead and stuffed birds into drones. The most interesting part? These "birds" are able to fully flap their wings and fly incognito. 
Amid concerns that these can be used to spy on humans and cattle alike, one of the authors of the research and the Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Mostafa Hassanalian spoke to New Scientist about the current prototype. He noted, “Sometimes you don’t want people to find out that this is a drone". The scientists added that current drones are too loud to be spying and that there is promise for future versions to eliminate this issue. 
These devices are named, "ornithopters" and use parts of stuffed dead carcass covering mechanical flappers. Professor Hassanalian also added, “Instead of using artificial materials for building drones, we can use the dead birds and re-engineer them as a drone". He also expressed his hope that these drones could be used to study behaviors of birds and wildlife as well as track down poachers and keep track of mass deforestation in the future. 
The news of this drone also comes amid another prototype called TJ Flyingfish that was developed by a collaboration between scientists at China’s Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Tongji University, and the Unmanned Systems Research Group at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This drone will erase any fear that aerial drone users may have regarding losing their gadget in the water. Fret not! This one occupies both geographies. 
The TJ Flyingfish operates by changing the position of its wings. It has the propellers facing upwards while in aerial mode and changes into facing downwards as it enters the water in addition to slowing down its speed. The most surprising part, this drone can be automated to fly without human supervision using its in-buikt camera system.