It’s Rocky, the robotic squirrel!

Meet “Rocky,” the robotic squirrel that is helping scientists decode squirrels’ communication techniques, social cues, and survival instincts. The gray squirrel can twitch its tail, make squirrel noises, and can slip into squirrel society as easy as a real live squirrel. It is used by a professor from Hampshire College in Massachusetts, and its controlled with a laptop computer and binoculars. It’d be really awesome if it was completely autonomous though!

Rocky isn’t the only robot animal being used by scientists. In Indiana scientists are using a fake lizard to attract real lizards. In Brussels there are fake cockroaches used to lure out real cockroaches. Awesome!

How does Rocky’s interactions pan out? Pretty well actually. When Rocky makes squirrel distress signals, flagging its tail and barking, other squirrels will respond with similar actions and then hide. Real squirrels are apparently easily fooled by the fake squirrel, no matter how fake it looks to humans.

What they really need to make is a robotic bear. But that would probably be a little more dangerous when it turns against humanity.

[AP]

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