In interviews, observations, and ceremonies dating back more than a century, the indigenous peoples of Australia's Northern Territory maintain that a collective group of birds they call “firehawks” can control fire by carrying burning sticks to new locations in their beaks or talons.

The idea is that these birds of prey use fires to help find food—making easy meals out of insects and other small animals trying to flee the blaze. (Read how wildfires form and why they’re so dangerous.)

The anecdotes, compiled in a recent study published in the Journal of Ethnobiology, may lead some to rethink how fires spread through tropical savannas like those in northern Australia.

"We're not discovering anything," cautions co-author Mark Bonta, a National Geographic