Scientists in New Mexico are giving dead birds a new lease on life with an unconventional approach as they are putting together a crew of birds killed through taxidermy for wildlife research.

A team at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro takes birds preserved through taxidermy and converts them into drones to study flight.

Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian, a mechanical engineering professor 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 fuel," he said.

Brenden Herkenhoff, a Ph.D. student at New Mexico Tech, focuses his research on coloration and flight efficiency.

While many think of a bird's color as a way to attract mates or use camouflage, Herkenhoff studies how color affects flight efficiency.

"We've performed experiments and determined that for our fixed-wing aircraft, applying certain colors can change the flight efficiency. And we believe the same is true for birds," he said.

The current taxidermy bird prototype flies for a maximum of only 20 minutes, so the next stage is to figure out how to make it fly longer and conduct tests in the wild among living birds, Hassanalian said.