Turkish authorities announced Tuesday that they have recovered the body of a daring Israeli spy—replete with feathers. And a belly full of bees.


According to reports from Israeli news site YNet, a farmer discovered the dead bird, a Merops Apiaster aka the European Bee-Eater, in a field outside of Gaziantep and turned it over to authorities after he noticed an Israeli serial band on the bird's leg.

Never mind that band turned out to be a common means of ornithological tracking—the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel has even confirmed the bands serial number as being legitimate. But Turkey has a an even more damning piece of evidence—the size of the Bee-eater's nostrils! Dun dun dunnnnnnnn.


Turns out, and don't ask how they verified this, that the European Bee-Eater's spacious nasal cavity is ample enough to accommodate a perceived suite of microelectronics—spy cameras, tiny mics, tracking bugs, and whatnot—turning these otherwise benign fowl into flying espionage centers. At least that's what Ankara's security services, who are now in possession of the 61 gram "spy," believe. Or, you know, it could just be one of a large population of European Bee-eaters that inhabits the Northern tip of Israel and migrate across Turkey in their annual trek to, you guessed it, Southern Europe. [Ynet via Business Insider - Image: William Kreijkes]