At the height of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, the Egyptian government ordered that all of the nation's pigs – some 300,000 animals – should be slaughtered. They thought this would help to limit the spread of swine flu in dense urban environments such as Cairo. But the cull had an interesting, if all too predictable, side effect.

Pigs were an unofficial part of the nation's waste-processing infrastructure. They were tacitly relied upon as a key component of the public sanitation regime, and wiping them out resulted in rapidly growing piles of organic waste in the streets.

When we think of cities, traditionally this brings to mind roads, homes and vehicles. But animals are as much a functional part of the modern city as subways and skyscrapers.

This is the age of animals as infrastructure.

Animal Labour

Chicago's O'Hare Airport, one of the busiest in the world, recently turned to animals as a workforce for seasonal landscape maintenance. In 2013, the airport added what the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) called its O'Hare Grazing Herd.

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Insect assistants

In the aftermath of catastrophic flooding, scientists were keen to learn how Hurricane Sandy might have affected the birds, insects and rats of New York City. A team led by entomologist Elsa Youngsteadt at North Carolina State University in Raleigh found that these creatures were far more resilient than had been expected. Indeed, they were thriving, consuming organic waste and discarded food at a stunning rate.

Insects along a single stretch of Broadway in Manhattan were found to be responsible for consuming as much as 950 kilograms of organic waste a year.Arthropods – a group that includes spiders, ants and millipedes – are the great unacknowledged garbage disposal of New York City.