On Stephens Island in New Zealand’s storm-wracked Cook Strait, the tuatara—one of the most ancient reptile species on Earth—is getting a hand from distinctly 21st-century science (see a New Zealand map).

Researchers have placed in the wild a very special male that, like its wild cousins, can put on physical displays to establish its dominance.

But this reptile’s skin is made of rubber, not scales, and its “heart” is a nickel-cadmium battery.

The alpha male in question is “Robo-Ollie,” a robotic tuatara created to help researchers understand the behavior of these rare reptiles, the last species in a family that dates back 200 million years.

Specifically, postdoctoral student Jennifer Moore wants to know how male tuatara establish dominance—how they attract and keep females.

Understanding critical behaviors could help tuatara translocation and captive-breeding programs, perhaps by guiding conservation managers to the genetically fittest, most productive males.

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This 10-pound, two-legged robotic replica of a Troodon from the Cretaceous period walks like the real thing

To the high-pitched hissing sound of electric servos, Troody slowly tilts forward. Fourteen tiny motors in her limbs begin to hum as her shins lift up from her feet. She stretches her legs and rises to an upright position. Still wobbling back and forth a bit, she takes her first timid step forward, then another—and then she is walking.

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Rubber band used to make super tiny robotic flea.

via boingboig:

UC Berkeley researchers are designing a millimeter-long robotic flea that uses a tiny rubber band to launches itself into the air. The current prototype is seven millimeters long and tests have shown that it could jump 20 centimeters off the ground. The graduate student who led the research, Sarah Bergbreiter, is part of UC Berkeley’s effort to build Smart Dust, tiny wireless sensors that form ad hoc networks. Several years ago, I wrote an article for Lab Notes about Sarah’s previous work adding legs to Smart Dust to transform the sensors into miniscule mobile robots. This latest approach involves a rubber band two millimeters long and just nine microns thick, one tenth the diameter of a human hair.

read more at boinboing or Technology Review or Berkley News