Rocky the Robot Squirrel and Other Robot Animals

Posted 12 May 2008 at 18:49 UTC by steve

A CNN Technology article described Rocky, a robot squirrel being used by researchers to study squirrel behavior in the real world. Rather than observing squirrels in an artificial lab environment, Sarah Partan of Hampshire College and other researchers are using robot squirrels to study the animals in the natural environment. Scientists hope to learn more about squirrels communication techniques, social cues, and survival instincts. In additional squirrel-droids, the article mentions other cases where robots are being used to study real animals in the wild including an intimidating robot lizard and promiscuous robot cockroach. The article doesn't mention whether Rocky has a built-in cell phone like the last robot squirrel we covered.