History Main / AnimalEspionage

* ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'': The final evolution of the Water-type starter is Inteleon, a chameleon/basilisk lizard with the looks, personality and abilities of secret agents and spies. [[HollywoodChameleons It can camouflage]], shoot high pressure water jets out of its fingertips as if it's firing a gun, and use the membrane behind its back as a makeshift hang glider. It's native to Galar, which is based on the United Kingdom, the birth place of Franchise/JamesBond.

* ''Franchise/HarryPotter'': Animagi can turn themselves into animals so as to go around without attracting suspicion as a human, though there's always an element to the disguise that identifies his/her human form. In Rita Skeeter's case, she turns into a literal surveillance bug (a beetle). This causes Bellatrix Lestrange to kill a fox at one point, as she believed it to be an auror... except in this case it genuinely was a fox.

* In The ''[[Franchise/SherlockHolmes Dr. Watson]] At War'' series by Robert Ryan, UsefulNotes/TELawrence thinks the Germans have a spy in the room where he's drawing up maps for the Allied armies. Watson spends the night staking out the map room, but all he gets is a CatScare when he interrupts a cat rummaging in a waste basket for food. Afterwards however, he suggests to Lawrence that a cat might be trained to retrieve waste paper before it's put in the incinerator.

* In ''Dr. Watson At War'' series by Robert Ryan, Lawrence of Arabia thinks the Germans have a spy in the room where he's drawing up maps for the Allied armies. Watson spends the night staking out the map room, but all he gets is a CatScare when he interrupts a cat rummaging in a waste basket for food. Afterwards however, he suggests to Lawrence that a cat might be trained to retrieve waste paper before it's put in the incinerator.

* ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'':

* ''LightNovel/FateZero'': Kiritsugu Emiya at a few points uses bat familiars with cameras rigged to their chests for recon, [[PostModernMagik because the cameras (not being alive) can see through the illusion spell of other Mages]].

* ''Film/AntMan'' shows Hank Pym applying his control over ants and shrinking technology to sneak in cameras and tools through secure lines without detection.

[[caption-width-right:350:''If looks could kill, you'd be dead already.'']]

* ''TabletopGame/StarWarsD6'': In the ''Cracken's Rebel Operatives'' sourcebook, Moff Jarnek's CoolPet Daerlar is a Covallon. Because Covallon walk on all fours, it isn't widely known that they're a fully sentient race. Dearlar chooses to keep this fact secret from his "master" in order to spy on Jarnek's guests.

* Uncle Sam, the trusty CanineCompanion to Golden Eyes of ComicBook/GoldenEyesAndHerHeroBill, can be counted among the ranks of animal spies. In the span of an evening he alerts American troops to the position of an American [=POW=] in a German camp, ferries secret messages between Golden Eyes and the American side, knocks out the German officer who threatened Golden Eyes, and makes sure that the intelligence Golden Eyes stole from the unconscious officer gets back to the allies. [[HeroicDog Good boy!]]
* ComicBook/TheFalcon sometimes uses Redwing, the falcon he's empathically bonded with, to discretely monitor people from a distance. Given Redwing's naturally excellent vision, this works extremely well. Layer, he finds he can extend this connection to any bird, granting him the most extensive spy network in the world.
* Doreen Green, ''ComicBook/TheUnbeatableSquirrelGirl'', can communicate with squirrels and among other things persuade them to scout for her. A later villain, Melissa Morbeck, utilizes microchip technology that uplifts and mind controls animals to obey her commands. She primarily uses this to make them her spies, stealing highly proprietary technology from people like Tony Stark.

* In ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'', some of the scouts that Shamuhaza uses to spy on the heroes are beast-like creatures that can turn [[{{Invisibility}} invisible]]. He can [[TouchTelepathy sift through their minds]] to know about their plans.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Krosp from ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' is an [[UpliftedAnimal Uplifted Cat]] who was created specifically to bend ordinary cats to his will and make them serve as spies and saboteurs. The experiment succeeded in giving Krosp human-level intelligence and making other cats desire to obey him, but the project ultimately failed because ordinary cats couldn't understand complex commands, and they have terrible attention spans anyway (so if he could get them to understand what he'd wanted they'd set off intent on doing it... and then promptly get distracted by an interesting glint of light or similar and forget about it).
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' has the familiar scout out a bandit camp, which is detected by all the bandits in the wide camp and shot by arrows - basically mocking the same type of KillerGameMaster that does the same, especially commenting about how many birds fly overhead each day.

* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', Taylor eventually learns to interpret the data from the bugs [[MinionMaster which she controls]]. Even one or two bugs in a room are enough for audio surveillance to some extent, and just [[ParanoiaFuel consider how many insects are around you]] ''[[ParanoiaFuel right now.]]'' Even before that, she could keep track of where the bugs were. [[DownplayedTrope While this didn't allow for precise intelligence, it allowed her to track people within her power's range and determine the layout of an area.]]

* In ''[[WesternAnimation/DragonsRidersOfBerk Race to the Edge]]'', Hiccup and the other Dragon Riders befriend a colony of Night Terrors, a swarm of little dragons that can band together to make themselves appear much larger. In return for sharing the island and helping to protect them, the Night Terrors act as sentries.

* During the UsefulNotes/ColdWar the UsefulNotes/{{CIA}} launched Project [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty Acoustic Kitty]], in which they implanted microphones and radio transmitters into cats to spy on the [[DirtyCommunists Soviet Union]]. Unfortunately, they had difficulty training the cats to go where they wanted and the project was declared a failure.

* Doreen Green, ''ComicBook/TheUnbeatableSquirrelGirl'', can communicate with squirrels and among other things persuade them to scout for her. A later villain, Melissa Morbeck, unveils microchip technology the uplifts and mind controls animals to obey her commands. She primarily uses this to make them her spies, stealing highly proprietary technology from people like Tony Stark.

* ''Film/AntMan shows Hank Pym applying his control over ants and shrinking technology to sneak in cameras and tools through secure lines without detection.

* ComicBook/TheFalcon sometimes uses Redwing, the falcon he's empathically bonded with, to discretely monitor people from a distance. Given Redwing's naturally excellent vision, this works extremely well.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Vultures are claimed to have been used by Israel to spy on Saudi Arabia. The vulture allegedly had transmitters attached to it. [[http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/27/middleeast/israel-vulture-lebanon-spy/ Lebanon would later hold a different bird on the same charge]]. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-related_animal_conspiracy_theories This is far from]] [[http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/02/egypt-spying-stork-animal-espionage the only accusation]] of such activity.
* The CIA tried this with a cat once to listen in on some Soviet agents' conversation through a radio receiver in its tail. The cat however ran into traffic and got ran over.
* The town of Hartlepool, England supposedly once found a monkey as the sole survivor of a shipwreck during the Napoleonic Wars. Believing the monkey to be a French spy due to its French uniform (having seen neither a monkey nor a Frenchman before) after trialling it on the beach, they hanged it. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_hanger Hartlepudlians have had a seriously bad case of]] NeverLiveItDown as a result, with some [[InsultBackfire embracing the term "monkey hangers"]] and others cringing.
* The RAF [[http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/Nazi%20Pigeon.htm is alleged to have trained falcons]] in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII for animal ''counter''espionage, specifically to deal with German messenger pigeons.
[[/folder]]

For Carrier Pigeons, see InstantMessengerPigeon. Supertrope to LiteralSurveillanceBug. If a character does this by using the eyes of the animal, it's AnimalEyeSpy.

* In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing'' films, the Fellowship takes cover from a massive flock of crows, thinking Saruman is using them as spies.

[[caption-width-right:350:''If looks could kill, you'd be dead already'']]

* Perry the platypus, from ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', is secretly Agent P of the Organization Without a Cool Acronym. All other agents in the OWCA are also animals (and on at least one occasion, a potted plant).

* In the ''Franchise/StarWars RPG'' sourcebook, "Cracken's Rebel Operatives", Moff Jarnek's CoolPet Daerlar is a Covallon. Because Covallon walk on all fours, it isn't widely known that they're a fully sentient race. Dearlar chooses to keep this fact secret from his "master" in order to spy on Jarnek's guests.
* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', a wizard's familiar or a druid or ranger's animal companion will regularly be used for this purpose. Success can vary heavily, but if the game is run by a KillerGameMaster, expect that the random group of bandits will instantly go to DEFCON 1 the moment they spot an owl sitting in a tree near their camp at night.

* ''The Spy with a Cold Nose'' was a British film made in 1966 in which a dog with a radio transmitter in its collar was given as a gift to the Russian Premier.

* ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilationKingdoms'' has the Spyhawk, Parrot, and Bat as the scouts for three of the major factions. They have a large field of view and can fly quickly, but they're somehow considered highly conspicuous to be auto-attacked.

* ''Webcomic/OrderOfTheStick'' has the familiar scout out a bandit camp, which is detected by all the bandits in the wide camp and shot by arrows - basically mocking the same type of KillerGameMaster that does the same, especially commenting about how many birds fly overhead each day.

* Vultures are claimed to have been used by Israel to spy on Saudi Arabia. The vulture allegedly had transmitters attached to it. [[http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/27/middleeast/israel-vulture-lebanon-spy/ Lebanon would later hold a different bird on the same charge]]. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-related_animal_conspiracy_theories This is far from]] [[http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/02/egypt-spying-stork-animal-espionage the only accusation]] of such activity, although Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment applies.

Spying on people is an activity carried out by humans, but it can also be carried out by animals. These animal can have implants allowing for communication, be sapient or not sapient, and maybe even have chips that allow you to record what they see. The animals can be trained, used as tools by the humans or could be doing it for their own purposes.