Researchers have already developed remote control systems for rats, pigeons and even sharks. The motivation is simple: why labour for years to build robots that imitate the ways animals move when you can just plug into living creatures and hijack systems already optimised by millions of years of evolution? “There’s a long history of trying to develop micro-robots that could be sent out as autonomous devices, but I think many engineers have realised that they can’t improve on Mother Nature,” says insect neurobiologist John Hildebrand at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Furthermore, animals’ sensory abilities far outstrip the vast majority of artificial sensors. Sharks, moths and rats, for example, have amazing olfactory systems that allow them to detect the faintest traces of chemicals. And if you can hide your control system within your cyborg’s body, it would be virtually indistinguishable from its unadulterated kin - the perfect spy.

José Delgado at Yale University created the first cyborg animal in the 1950s. Delgado discovered where to insert electrodes in the brains of several species, including bulls, to acquire crude control of their movement. In one dramatic demonstration in 1963, he stood in a bullring in Córdoba, Spain, as one of his cyborg bulls charged at him. With just seconds between him and a good goring, Delgado flicked a switch and the bull skidded to a halt.

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