But these drones aren't being used for violence, instead, they'll be used to study actual birds - the U.S. government will be using these bird-shaped contraptions to study their flight patterns.
Reuters reported a team at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro is taking birds that have been preserved through taxidermy and converting them into drones in order to study flight.
Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian, a mechanical engineering professor who is leading the project, had found that artificial, mechanical birds had not given the results he was looking for.
"We came up with this idea that we can use ... dead birds and make them (into) a drone," he said. "Everything is there ... we do reverse engineering."
Taxidermy bird drones - currently being tested in a purpose-built cage at the university - can be used to understand better the formation and flight patterns of flocks. That in turn can be applied to the aviation industry, said Hassanalian.
"If we learn how these birds manage ... energy between themselves, we can apply (that) into the future aviation industry to save more energy and save more fuel," he said.
It's interesting that studying how a birds fly can still impact aviation.
You'd think with all of the technology we have these days, nature would be the last thing we would turn to.
