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sentinel animal

British

noun

an animal that is placed in a given environment and then monitored to find out if an infectious disease or other harmful agent is present in that environment

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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The best way to find a virus in the wild, at the present time, is to place a sentinel animal at the suspected location of the virus and hope the animal gets sick.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023