Dubbed "Rocky" after the cartoon character, the robo-squirrel is working its way into Hampshire's live-squirrel clique, controlled by researchers several yards away with a laptop computer and binoculars.

Sarah Partan, an assistant professor in animal behavior at Hampshire, hopes that by capturing a close-up view of squirrels in nature, Rocky will help her team decode squirrels' communication techniques, social cues and survival instincts.

Basic Models

Rocky is among many robotic critters worldwide helping researchers observe animals in their natural environments rather than in labs. The research could let scientists better understand how animals work in groups, court, intimidate rivals and warn allies of danger.

In Indiana, for instance, a fake lizard shows off its machismo as researchers assess which actions intimidate and which attract real lizards.

Pheromone-soaked cockroach counterfeits in Brussels, meanwhile, exert peer pressure on real roaches to move out of protective darkness.

In California, a tiny video camera inside a fake female sage grouse records close-up details as it's wooed -- and more -- by the breed's unusually promiscuous males.

The research may even help explain similar instinctive behaviors in humans, researchers say.

"Animals and humans are all affected by behaviors, body postures and signals from each other that we may not be aware of," Partan said.

The use of fake critters to infiltrate real groups of animals is so new that few companies build or sell such tools to researchers.

Many of the scientists using animal doppelgangers have modified toy animals or, like Partan and her students, cobbled together their own with fake fur, small motors, circuits and other material. Partan, who created Rocky a few years ago with students when she taught at the University of South Florida, is constantly refining its actions and updating its technology.

Rocky's movement is controlled by basic computer programs, and it has tiny speakers inside that play recordings Partan purchased from an animal-sounds library at Cornell University.

For the full story, click here!