“We’re about to have an internet of animals, and that’s super exciting.”

So said Martin Wikelski, from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, on BBC Science Focus . Wikelski was referring to a programme he founded, the International Co-operation for Animal Research Using Space (Icarus).

The “internet of animals” he envisages is a system that monitors animals and collates the data on a freely accessible platform. This month Icarus launches the first of a series of satellites into space that hope to track 100,000 animals worldwide, so data from their movements can inform conservationists about habitat loss and climate change – and, hopefully, help us anticipate natural disasters and zoonotic disease . “The ancient art of augury is now being resurrected for the space ag

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