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Robots Give Insight to Animal Instincts

Posted on: Sunday, 4 May 2008, 09:00 CDT

The days of observing animals in labs to discover their rituals, habits, and communication methods may be near their end. New robotic creatures are capable of allowing scientists to study the animals in their natural habitats. Animal behavior has been studied for years, but lab conditions have stifled much discovery until now.

Unfortunately, these robotic critters are few and far between. There is a lack of manufacturers due to the newness of the concept. Despite this setback, an assistant professor in animal behavior at Hampshire College, Sarah Partan, led a team of students in the creation of a robotic squirrel.

Some scientists who use these pseudo-animals have modified toys, but Partan and some students from the University of South Florida created Rocky, their squirrel out of circuits, small motors, and fake fur. The gray, bushy-tailed squirrel constantly has to be refined and updated, but it allows Partan and her students a much closer look at the lives of these animals.

Rocky is just one of many animal doppelgangers worldwide. Others include fake lizards, cockroaches, and even a Sage Grouse. Research completed with these animals will assists scientists in decoding survival instincts, social cues, and other communication techniques of these species.

As for the squirrel, he is trying to invade Hampshire College’s squirrel colony and pass for a live being while being controlled by researchers with binoculars and laptops several yards away. His motions are controlled by simple computer programs, and tiny speakers inside the squirrel play recordings which were purchased from Cornell University’s animal-sounds library. He is mounted on a board, shielded by camouflage, and connected to the researchers with a long cord.

On one of Rocky’s recent outings, students Maya Gounard and Andrew Fulmer (20 and 19, respectively) made Rocky flag his tail, bark, and generally warn other squirrels of danger. On successful ventures this causes the live squirrels to flag their tails and stop what they are doing to check for danger and hide. Partan’s team watches for signs that the real squirrels have picked up on Rocky’s signals. They also determine if it’s the noise or the movements that Rocky makes which alert the squirrels to respond. During this outing, a particular live squirrel jerked up his hind legs and froze. Partan said of its response, "We watch for a trade-off in their behavior. He gave up foraging to focus on being vigilant, so that's something we'd note as a discernible response."

Another robotic creation, a lizard in Indiana exhibits energy to let researchers determine what attracts and what intimidates real lizards. Emilia Martins, the developer of the lizard, prompts the robot to do push-ups which generally trigger similar displays of courtship and power among real lizards. Although, depending on the commands fed to the fake lizard, the real ones can act as if they’re being threatened, ridiculed, or aroused. This gives Martins and other researchers the opportunity to watch leg and eye movements of the creatures.

Fake cockroaches at the Free University of Brussels which were doused in pheromones were accepted so strongly into the live group that the real ones were peer pressured by the fakes to move into the light and out of protective darker areas.

Studying these instinctive responses will not only give researchers insight into the animal kingdom, but it may also help explain similar behaviors in humans. "Animals and humans are all affected by behaviors, body postures and signals from each other that we may not be aware of," Partan said.

According to Partan, a certain sound may be interpreted to mean, “Come over here, you sexy beast,” but if the sound is changed slightly the message is completely altered and might mean something like, “You're about to be torn to shreds if you don't get out of my territory.”

In the words of Greg Demas, director of Indiana University’s Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior and an associate professor of biology, “Whether it's a bunch of squirrels in a field or humans in a mall, there are general principles of behavior that seem to hold up across species lines.” Studying these robots with the live animals in the field provides ecological relevance and leads scientists to the “next steps of the research.”

However the application of these fake animals to relevant research depends on the real species’ intelligence, eyesight, sense of smell, and size. An ornithology professor from Cornell, Jack Bradbury, states, “The bigger the animal is and the more complicated it is, the harder it is to have a proper robot that mimics the signals and has the right visual cues.”

Bradbury has not used robots himself in studies, but has used sounds emanating from hidden speakers to manipulate animals in the wild. According to Bradbury, "Wild parrots are pretty smart, but I've gone on for hours interacting with them that way. They come up to the bush and look at it and don't see the birds, but they keep communicating with the belief there's another parrot in there somewhere."

He claims that the advent of these mechanical animals should not be solely for the purpose of cleverness, but to help scientists answer questions that they otherwise cannot.

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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