That’s Not a Squirrel…It’s a Robot!
by Jacob (AP Biology)
Ok, picture this: You’re a squirrel minding its own business eating food and just chillin’ when all of a sudden a weird looking squirrel comes out of nowhere starts flagging its tail and barking like mad. You instantly run to a tree and look around for danger but the squirrel stays where it was. Then you realize that the squirrel is a robot.
Well, in real life the squirrel might not realize that the strange squirrel is a robot but this actually does happen. A way to learn more about animal behavior is to use a robot replica of an animal to interact with those animals. This squirrel experiment was used by Hampshire College to see the reactions of squirrels towards differing signals. The squirrels acted as if the robotic squirrel was real because of its sounds and movements.
Other experiments with robot or fake animals have also occurred. A robotic lizard made to show courtship rituals is an example as well as a fake cockroach covered in pheromones of robotic and fake animals used in these experiments. Also, because larger animals are harder to make robots of, speakers have been used to imitate the sounds of animals. In one experiment a parrot thought that there was another parrot in the branches close to it and had a conversation for a long time with the speaker.
The more scientists and researchers use these fake animals the more they learn about the social workings of those animals. “Having these models out in the field is taking us to the next steps of research.” This was said by Greg Demas, director of Indiana University’s Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior about how these experiments are changing the way research happens.
May 17th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
This is a very interesting post, Jacob. I did not know that scientists used robotic animals to better learn about real animal behavior. Anyways I was doing some research on the internet and I found some things that this technique has been able to discover. A robotic squirrel, may make the screeching noises and shake its tail that indicates danger is near. If the real squirrels respond, then the scientists know that they have some sort of conversation going. Researchers some day might use robotic humans to help us learn about ourselves and the responses and instinctive behavior that is part of us. We may not be aware of all of the behavior that we exhibit.
http://computers.families.com/blog/robotic-animals-decode-animal-talk-and-behavior
May 17th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
wow this is interesting. My favorite part of this blog was about the parrot talking, thinking that there actually was another parrot near by. We have learned about animal behavior this year in biology and a very neat animal that we learned about. It was an African grey parrot named Alex. Alex was able to grasp the concept of zero. This is one of the most amazing thing I have ever seen. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0715_050715_parrotzero.html. This bird is not the only animal that is amazing many other animals can do amazing things. I remember watching a movie in biology about a gorilla who actually took a stick to measure how deep the water was in an are. That means that gorillas actually could make their own tools for different things. Great post jacob
May 17th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Wow! That squirrel looks so real! This reminds me of a plant that Miss Baker was telling our class about. She showed us a short clip of a plant that was disguised as a bee and it even smelled like a female bee to attract other bees to come mate with it. The plant does this because when the bees would think they are mating, the flower is actually rubbing off some of its pollen onto the bee so that it can pollinate other flowers! Cool post!
May 17th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
here is the video that Miss Baker showed to our class about the Orchid Wasp Mimic
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-h8I3cqpgnA
May 17th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
That is soo cool! and that is gennius!! Who would think of making robotic animals to study behavioral and other patterns within a specie/ population. As I wass researching actually I came across one of these occurances. Scientist plant electrod chips in 5 mice’s brain to try to find nuero “specialized networks” in the brain but in the meantime they learned that mice can understand some of the human language especially directional terms such as turn left or turn right! Its all here on this website
http://futurefeeder.com/index.php/archives/2005/06/17/robotic-animals-implanting-mice-with-speech-recognition/
May 17th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
wow, ive never heard of robotic animals seving research purposes. this should be helpful because it will allow scientists to examine animals in a very natural way and give us true information on their interactions and responses to other animals. hopefully it will enable increased understanding of animals. it would be interestting to see if larger animals could be “replicated” accurately and give us information on some more unknown animals. i read on fox news that some scientists wonder if the robots are just used to be clever or if they can really answer questions that couldnt be answered before. hopefully thhis isnt the case but i wonde how this technology will develop
May 17th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Jacob, love this post! Technology and humor all rolled into one! This idea really has great potential though. If we can simulate animal behaviors with said robots, it’s quite simple to see the reactions of other animals to those behaviors. We could apply this to basically any animal we can easily observe and that does not have the intelligence to detect the presence of the robot. If we were to use it on an animal like a chimpanzee, or even a human, then it might be in effective. I’m a little confused though. In the case with the parrot, you said they had a “conversation.” Parrots are mimicking birds, and they simply mimic the noises they hear. Were they speaking to each other in the English language, or were they communicating via other sounds or some other method of communication?
Great post!
May 17th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
wow Jacob, Thats Crazy!! I mean who would have thought that we were able to go undercover as a squirrel in order to understand their behavior. Does anyone know if test have been run to observe animals reaction to bizzarre behavior from other animals? This could show animals response to foreign situations, without any previous knowledge or experience.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I hear all the time about how technology and the modernization of the world has destroyed ecosystems and caused the extinctions of thousands and thousands of animals. All i seem to hear is depressing things about how we are destroying the world with our human creations. This post was great for me because it really brightened my day up a bit. It showed me that not all modern machines are bad for the enviroment. This post is a great example of how we as humans can use our God given intelligence to create machines to benefit the natural world. I think people should use this as a motivational post and be motivated to excell in their studies so that they too can invent magnificant creations such as these to benefit our world and save thousands of animals and their enviroments.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
That is a really interesting post Jacob. I never knew that scientist used robots for studing animal behavior. I knew that robots are used in theme parks and other places for show. At Universal Sudios in Orlando the Jarrasic Park ride uses robotic dinosaurs. It seems to me that either scientist got the idea from our ideas or we got it from their ideas. It must be pretty hard being able to create a replica of an animal that close to the real thing. My hat is off to the person who created that squirrel cause it fooled me.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Wow that is really neat. The fact that we can create robot animals to study live animals is amazing. I wonder what the real animals think the first time they see it, they must think it’s real according to the squirrell’s reaction. I was reading an article, and it said the military is creating robot animals, they have used robots to study sharks, and how they detect certain chemicals in the water. This is a breakthrough in technology. I wonder how techonolgy will develop withing the next 20 years? Here is the article about the sharks.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1759585&page=1
September 10th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
It’s some really awesome stuff! I also found out that scientists are using these robotic animals to figure out what actions may specifically OFFEND an animal. Using the robot they can test what sort of actions may actually make an animal hostile, and because the robot is in there, nobody is at risk of being injured or worse (use your imagination). Its allot better then striking a scientist in a cage with a cobra and testing which hand gestures may cause the snake to strike. I also found out that they made robotic slugs! I wonder if it leaves a trail of robo-slime…
September 16th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I think that this was a really interesting article. I didn’t know that animals could be fooled by robots and accepted into their society. I have a few questions how would they squirrel communicate, move naturally, and not scare the other animals away. ” I read at this website
Information about the senses
{http://www.school-for-champions.com/senses/limits.htm}
that some animals can see a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum “ And I also found out about this interesting robot that has the brain of a rat!!!
Rat brain robot
{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7559150.stm}
September 25th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I really liked reading this article. I never knew that robots were used to help scientist about social behaviors in animals. I found out that there is a traveling robotic animal zoo! It is a traveling exbit that is going to a total of thirty science and natural history musems and zoos in North America. “The Robot Zoo” allows us to see the biomechanics of giant robotic animals to show us how real animals work. If features a chameleon, a rhinoceros, a giant squid with 18-foot tentacles, a platypus,a a house fly with a 10-foot wingspread, a grasshopper, a bat and a giraffe whose head and neck alone stretch 9 feet tall! This exhibit also has hands on activities for a ful learning experience! How exciting would it be to experience this in real life!
http://www.evergreenexhibitions.com/exhibits/robot_zoo/index.asp