Sudanese officials said they have captured an electronically-tagged vulture suspected of being dispatched by Israel on a spying mission.

Sudanese officials announced Monday that they have captured an electronically-tagged vulture suspected of being dispatched by Israel on a spying mission.

The suspicious bird was found to be tagged with an Israeli GPS chip, which is capable of broadcasting images via satellite, as well as a leg band labeled "Israel Nature Service" and "Hebrew University, Jerusalem", the Egyptian El Balad newspaper reported.

Israel's National Parks Service dismissed the allegations, saying that both the band and the GPS chip were standard migration trackers.

Tensions between the two countries become increasingly tense after Sudan accused Israel of carrying out the bombing of a munitions depot near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum in October.

The depot was reportedly supplying Hamas terrorists with weapons to use against the Jewish state. Israel has not commented on the raid.

In May, Turkey similarly accused Israel of implanting a bird with surveillance devices that officials claimed the Jewish state was using for espionage purposes.

Zoological conspiracy theories, accusing Israel of embedding animals with surveillance devices in order to gather intelligence information and attack against civilian populations, have long been propagated by the Arab media as a way of inciting against the Jewish state and alleging of “Zionist plots.”