Wild Eggs

The agency that the Pentagon set up to turn outlandish sci-fi concepts into reality has come closer to creating an army – or air force – of cybugs: cyber-moths and beetles that can spy on the enemy.

Inspired by Thomas Easton’s 1990 novel Sparrowhawk in which animals enlarged by genetic engineering were fitted with implanted control systems, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) set out to insert micro-systems into living insects as they undergo metamorphosis.

The plan is that their organs will grow around the chips and wires that make up the remote-control devices.

Darpa’s goal is to create cyborg insects that can fly at least 100 metres from their controller and land within 5 metres of a target and stay there until commanded to buzz off again.

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