#spy

#spy

The CIA Trained Cats as Cold War SpiesIn the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, US intelligence looked into the possibility of getting cats to spy on the Soviets. They considered dogs, but decided using cats would be cheaper. Oh yes, as if the expense of buying and feeding dogs would be more valuable than their ease of training. The premise of the program was that spies would not put up their guard just because a cat is in the vicinity. They might not even notice it. Cats were trained to follow directions to get to a target, and one was even implanted with audio devices and sent out on a mission. How do you think that went?

Spy Crab Infiltrates Annual Christmas Island MigrationThe Christmas Island red crab (Gecarcoidea natalis) lives on a small set of Islands in the Indian Ocean. Every year, at the beginning of the rainy season, they migrate from the forests to the shoreline, millions of them, to mate and lay eggs. This migration clashes with the residents of the island, but in recent years, islanders try to take care not to interfere with the migration. In order to study the red crabs up close, conservationists rigged up a robotic crab with a spy camera to blend in with the crabs without disrupting their natural behavior. You can see the whole sequence in the video below.We assume there was more one than one crab robot in order to film the other. Like the real crabs, the robot had to negotiate fences, cross busy roads, and avoid being eaten. This footage is part of the BBC/PBS series Spy in the Wild 2. -via Laughing Squid #crab #redcrab #ChristmasIsland #robot