WETA Working on Robotic Lizard For Science

Roland Piquepaille writes "The tuatara, which is both related to lizards and snakes, is one of the planet's oldest reptile species. It's been living in New Zealand for about 200 million years. Scientists still don't know much about their behavior, so they've asked Weta Workshop, a Wellington-based company known for its work on 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy, to build a robotic male tuatara. It is equipped with cameras which will help the researchers to discover how real male tuatara attract and keep females. The goal is to help conservation managers to the genetically fittest, most productive males. But what will happen if a female tuatara discovers that the robot is an impostor?"

Comments

Behavior isn't as complicated as we think

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark Tilden is the father of robots that mimic biology. What he has clearly demonstrated is that behavior, especially in insects, obeys very simple rules.

His insect robots have almost no processing power and yet mimic the behavior of real bugs very well.

Based on Tilden's experience, it would seem that these lizard? experimenters may actually be on the right path.

http://home.earthlink.net/~douglaspage/id25.html

The're not lizards!

[kithrup]

The tuatara isn't actually a lizard (any more than a crocodile is). They're pretty neat reptiles -- as a poster notes below, they have a "third eye" (they're not unique in this regard, some iguana species do as well, but not as well-developed as the tuatara's) -- and they require cold temperatures. Non-New Zealand zoos that get tuatara have to have triple cooling methods.

Re:Er...how?

[pimpimpim]

I agree. Imagine that realdolls are actually a scientific project from aliens, equipped with cameras and wireless transmitters, for the sake of studying human replication behaviour. Now imagine the kind of image these aliens would get from human replication behaviour, this would be rather skewed, wouldn't it.

Also imagine how the slashdotters will behave towards their realdolls after having read this. Or better, try your best not to imagine any of this.