Robots spied on penguins
Scientists have created robots disguised as penguins. This helped the scientists study penguins during their year-long stay in Antarctica. With the scientists were filmmakers who were making a penguin documentary.
One robot looked like a baby penguin. This fake chick convinced penguins and they allowed it into their colony.
Emperor penguins are very shy. When scientists go near emperors, these penguins normally back away. Their heart beats faster. That's not what the scientists wanted. They wanted to check their heart rate and collect other information about the penguins.
Photo from Pixabay is in the public domain.
So scientists decided to create a remote-control wheeled robot. We also call this a 'rover'.
While scientists watched 200 metres away, they drove the rover up to the penguins. The penguins didn't scamper away. They even allowed it to snuggle up to them and they sang to it. It sounded like a trumpet. The adult penguins might have been listening for a reply. But the scientists hadn't made the rover able to make a sound.
There's a reason scientists want to use rovers. Some worry that just by coming close to some shy animals they change their behaviour. That can change the results of their studies.
More spies
Scientists also used a rover without any animal disguise to spy on king penguins and elephant seals. This is because those animals don't flee strangers.
The king penguins attacked the small rover with their beaks, unless it stayed still. The attacks didn't matter because the rover got close enough to collect information. The large elephant seals didn't move when the rover zipped by and around them.
Fifty spy cameras
The filmmakers placed fifty spy cameras around the colony to film the birds.
Ten of the cameras were hidden in “animatronic” robots. They looked and moved like penguins. Animatronic is made up of two words "animated" and "electronic". Other cameras were hidden in fake eggs that looked so realistic some adult penguins tried to hatch them and predators tried to steal them away.
Ten of the cameras were hidden in “animatronic” robots. They looked and moved like penguins. Animatronic is made up of two words "animated" and "electronic". Other cameras were hidden in fake eggs that looked so realistic some adult penguins tried to hatch them and predators tried to steal them away.
Animatronic is a portmanteau word. |
A great success
Using the robots and spy cameras, the scientists were able to gather five times more information than they could have collected on their own.