Thanks to Brilliant for supporting  this episode of SciShow.   Go to Brilliant.org/SciShow  to learn how you can take your STEM skills to the next level! [♪ INTRO] Obviously, animals wearing outfits are  adorable, but researchers all over the world  are decking out animals with accessories  for plenty of other reasons, all in the name of science.

Instead of miniature hats and  diamond-studded collars, these researchers are attaching special  devices onto various critters to learn more about them, from  tracking elusive species’ travels and behaviors to even  controlling their movements. Here are six ways scientists have  used technological trinkets to discover more about animals  and the places they live.

Pollinators and their plants are  in decline around the world. While the primary blame of this pollination  loss is likely on humans for removing and fragmenting habitats, it’s a  challenge to study the specifics of how altering ecosystems may  be impacting pollinators. As you can imagine, tracking wee  little pollinators is no easy task.

For instance, hummingbirds  are important pollinators of tropical forest plants in Costa Rica. While they may be some of   the teeniest birds around, they still happen to be pretty large   compared to other flower visitors. So a 2017 master’s thesis   investigated what hummingbirds were up to in the face of changing habitats.

These researchers used tiny radio frequency  identification, or RFID, readers to read transponder tags that they attached  to multiple species of hummingbirds, to see how they moved through  habitats in search of a meal. The studies took place across large tracts  of forests, with some sections split up by pasture and by patches of scrub, or previously damaged forest that is   now regenerating. The researchers left   out unlimited food in all those areas to make sure the amount of food available   wasn’t skewing results.

These tracking studies found   that some species didn’t mind all that much and were found traveling through all areas,   from pasture to healthy forest. But certain species avoided the pastures entirely,   and others even seemed to avoid the scrub too, sticking only to the   healthy interior forest for travel. There are a few possible reasons only   some species avoided these areas.

There could be a higher risk of predators   finding them outside the denser forest. Some of them might even be fearful of   encountering more aggressive hummingbirds that would be harder   to escape in the open, but more research needs to   be done to help us understand these factors. Understanding these movement patterns could help   in regeneration efforts and guide how we approach   restoring fragmented ecosystems and creating pollinator corridors.   And while we’re tracking the  movement of important pollinators,   we might also want to track  their predators as well.   The Asian yellow-legged hornet is a  not-so-welcome introduced species that is   spreading around the world and happens  to be a predator to our beloved bees.   While they’re fine to thrive  in their own ecosystem,  these hornets have been putting  European pollinators at risk since their accidental introduction  to France around 2004.   They’ve been spreading at a rate  of about 70 kilometers a year,   even making the jump over to the UK in 2016.

The thing is, even though we’re trying to keep   tabs on them and limit their spread, they’re just really tough to track down.   Their nests are well-hidden, and you  can imagine how difficult it is   to follow a hornet back to its  nest just by watching it.   The good news is, these hornets  can carry a lot of weight   since they are built for carrying  bees back home for dinner. So researchers started outfitting them with  radio telemetry tags tied around their little waists using cotton thread in  order to track them to their nests. Once they released the hornets, they were able to locate their   nests within just hours.

And these weren’t short flights. Some hornets flew over a  kilometer back to their homes! Not only is this kind of research helpful  in finding nests and trying to stop the spread, but it also allows us to  learn a lot more about their ecology.

New discoveries about their lives might  lead to better managing their numbers and controlling their invasion  outside of their home turf. New Caledonian crows are already pretty  notorious for their incredible tool use. They not only use tools to extract  food from plant material, but they also manufacture  different types of tools over different geographical regions, showing  a whole new level of sophistication.

And while it's been suspected that New  Caledonian crows are passing on their tool skills on to each other, understanding  their social habits could unlock some interesting information about how this  information is shared from crow to crow. In a study that tracked 34  of these clever crows, special receivers were strapped  to them using little harnesses. These devices act differently than a  typical radio transmitting device, in that they also send information  out about other nearby tags.

This means they can be used to  create maps of social interactions between all tagged crows, including  how long they hang out together, and how far apart they are. And the results were wild. Over seven days, these crows  logged 28,000 social encounters!

Those are some seriously extroverted birds! And that showed the researchers they were   much more social than your average crow and did a lot of interacting with   birds they weren’t even related to. Some of these interactions likely   included watching each other use tools, so when it comes to passing along information,   it’s not just staying in the family.

It’s no wonder they’re so clever; they’re   chatting up all the other crows around them and watching what each other are up to.   The wandering glider dragonfly  is an impressive flyer   and is known for making its way across  entire oceans during migration.  Not too shabby for an insect  only 5 centimeters long!  By studying their incredible flight  capabilities, we might become better flyers  ourselves, by mimicking their flight  performance in human-made devices.  So researchers accessorized these dragonflies  with small loads attached to their undersides to learn more about what  makes them such incredible flyers. When these load-bearing insects  were dropped mid-air, researchers measured their flight  response to the added weight. With this, they were able to estimate the  total aerodynamic force on these insects while they were still able to maintain flight.

That is, they measured the forces acting   on the dragonflies as they fly, relative to the air around them. And it’s impressive, as these  weighed-down dragonflies could handle aerodynamic forces equivalent to  4.3 times their own body weight. For some flying species, we’ve really  only studied their flight performance in terms of lifting off with a load, and  not necessarily how their body reacts to recovering after being  dropped with extra weight.

And in the case of these wandering gliders,   they were able to handle a much heavier load through this   dropping method compared to earlier studies that measured their take-off abilities.   That means using this method on other  species could give us a stronger  comparison between their flight performances, and performances under different conditions.   And this will also help us understand  how wing shape, wing flexibility,   and other factors are influencing differences  in those species’ aerial abilities. Which of course could be important  information for use in engineering applications and  future flying machine designs. Next, let’s head from the air to the sea.

You might not be surprised to learn that   there are special instruments used to measure things like ocean   temperature and wind conditions, but thanks to seals,   we can take these measurements into very remote locations we   couldn’t otherwise reach! Southern elephant seals cover   a lot of area during their months at sea, from the sea ice zone to subtropical waters.   They can also dive to incredible depths,  reaching as deep as 2,000 meters. These seals hang out in regions where  there just isn’t a lot of other sampling going on, since they aren’t exactly ideal  locations for humans to be hanging out.

So, we get the seals to do  the monitoring work for us! While they go about their business,  GPS tags and satellite multi-sensors glued to the backs and noggins of  seals are recording and sending out all kinds of data, including the water  temperature, salinity, and pressure.  This information helps in the analysis  and forecasts of ocean temperature, wave and wind conditions, and  even phytoplankton blooms. So we can thank elephant seals for  helping us out with more accurate weather predictions and uncovering  some mysteries of the oceans for us.

Last but not least on our list  of great animal accessories, we’ve got the cyborg cockroaches. They’re here, looking for work. Jobs in search and rescue.

Okay, maybe making robot animal hybrids sounds like something out of a science fiction film,   but it’s not too far from reality. A fancy backpack attached to a   cockroach can actually work as a neuro-controller microcircuit.   Yes! Brain control!

Wires connected to   the insect’s antennae are used to control the cockroach’s movement.   We can do this by sending electrical  charges through the antennae   that trick the roach into believing  it has detected an obstacle,   causing it to veer in a new direction. Since this device is hooked up to Bluetooth,   its signal is very easy to track: All you need is a cell phone!  While watching the insect’s direction,  speed, and other movement information,  the electrical charges sent to their  antennae are adjusted to steer them into  different directions, sending them into  areas we can’t easily reach otherwise.  This would be a significant advantage if  used in search and rescue missions, like inside a collapsed building, to better focus our efforts and find   trapped people sooner! Cockroaches can go anywhere,   even if they have a fancy little backpack on.

We might not see a cockroach coming to our   rescue in the immediate future, but this kind of technology is only   getting better, as we’re able to gather more information with smaller and smaller devices.   These types of studies are becoming  more popular all the time,  and are helping us expand our knowledge of  ecology, physiology, and evolution!   With these new studies, we do also have  to be careful in how we use them,  and make sure that they are not negatively  impacting the species we’re studying. Devices, of course, can change  an animal's normal behavior, or even put significant energy demands on them, making it more difficult for them to survive.  Ensuring these devices don’t impact their  daily lives has to remain a major focus of these types of studies moving forward. And the good news is,   we’re getting really good at it.

We’ve even developed small devices   that can be injected with a syringe. That means animals can go about their day   none the wiser of the important  information they’re sending our way.   Thanks to these tech accessories, we can  learn so much about individual animals,   entire populations, and the world around them that would otherwise remain a mystery to us.   And if you’re the type of person who  enjoys learning how we can use science   to understand our mysterious world, you might want to check out   today’s sponsor, Brilliant! Brilliant offers STEM courses that   are designed to be hands-on with super interactive quizzes   and guided problems with explanations.

For example, if you liked this episode and   would like to learn more about how we can use technology and data   to understand biology, you might enjoy the   course Computational Biology. This course teaches how computational   biology can be used to approach problems from evolutionary relationships to forensics.   And if you sign up at Brilliant.org/SciShow,  you’ll get 20% off the   annual Premium subscription. Thanks again for watching this   episode of SciShow! [♪ OUTRO]