While viral headlines occasionally highlight various roadkill gourmands, the expired creatures actually have many other benefits. A team of biologists at Australia’s Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) investigated what happens when scientists frequently use these natural cadavers in their own work. In total, the team identified around 117 different use cases for roadkill in various scientific projects. “We found examples of successfully using roadkill to map species distributions, monitor disease and environmental pollution, study diets, track invasive species, [and] supply museum collections,” Beckmann said. “While roadkill will always be tragic, using these losses wisely could help drive scientific discovery and conservation forward, rather than letting valuable information decompose by the roadside,” she said.