![]() “The drive to understand the mechanics of sidewinding has brought us one step closer to achieving lifelike locomotion in robots. demonstrates the strength of integrating biology, engineering, and physics, providing the finest example to date of the reciprocal use of animals and robots for mutual illumination,” he wrote. The robot isn’t just an end product of studying nature: It’s also a tool to better understand nature. It’s mutually beneficial for biology and engineering, Goldman said. The researchers say they’re excited about the light that the robot sheds on how snakes move in real life, and about the insight the snakes provide into building a better, more agile robot. “This suggests that the evolution of sidewinding may have required a change in neuromotor control, shifting the timing of muscle activation to match the required template for sidewinding,” John Socha of Virginia Tech, who was not involved in the paper, wrote in a commentary on the study. They lacked the neural “software” to adopt the sidewinder’s expert gait, and unlike the robot, they couldn’t get an upgrade. The 3-foot, tree-climbing serpent got free from its. When they incorporated this change into the snake robot’s software, they found that the robot was much better able to handle sandy inclines that before would have left it wriggling helplessly.Īnd when the researchers ran 13 other closely related pit viper species through the gantlet to see whether they would be able to traverse the sand, they too writhed to no effect. The venomous mangrove snake that escaped its enclosure at the Bronx Zoo was still loose Tuesday marking a week since it went on the lam. The sidewinders were using a neat trick - they increased the contact length of the “zig” segments of their bodies with the sand, allowing them to move without getting stuck. The scientists found that the animals managed to move across inclines as high as 20 degrees (just 7 degrees shy of when sand will start flowing downhill with any disturbance). "The snakes were quite venomous, and we were not allowed to bring them to Georgia Tech," Goldman said. (Lead author Hamidreza Marvi, then at Georgia Tech and now at Carnegie Mellon, even dug up some of it himself.) They took the animals to a shed in the back of Zoo Atlanta and tested them on flat and slanted sandy surfaces. The researchers went to the Yuma Desert in Arizona to find sidewinder rattlesnakes to study - and they even brought back sand from the desert to make sure the animals would be traversing natural terrain. But the robot, called Elizabeth, slipped and pitched over on a sandy slope.Ĭhoset, who has spent years building robotic snakes, teamed up with Goldman to see whether they could use the robot to understand how the sidewinder was moving - and perhaps improve the robot in the process. One such robot built by Howie Choset, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author of the study, was deployed on an archaeological mission to search ancient Egyptian caves thought to hold artifacts that were thousands of years old. Researchers have long worked on snake-like robots, potentially useful for traversing rough terrain or entering damaged buildings in search of survivors. "There are field biologists who've studied these animals, and they say if you look at sidewinding too long, you'll go mad." "It's a crazy-looking gait," said senior author Daniel Goldman, a physicist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. ![]() ![]() ![]() It looks very different from the comparatively straightforward slither of your typical snake. Its zigzagging body sidles across hot deserts, using the “zig” segments of its curving body for purchase as it lifts up the “zag” segments. Zoo animal escapes happen rarely, about five times a year on average over the last five years, said Rob Vernon, spokesman for the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, which represents and accredits 213 zoos and aquariums in 47 states.The sidewinder, known formally as Crotalus cerastes, has clearly mastered the art of traversing the sandy deserts of the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. Bronx Zoo, Ma– Mert, an aged domestic goose at the Bronx Zoo, was euthanized on Monday due to complications from a tumor first diagnosed in 2016. Mert, an Aged Domestic Goose at the Bronx Zoo, Euthanized Due to Complications from Tumor. Is Mert the goose at the Bronx Zoo still alive? ![]() The mangrove snake has now been missing as long as the deadly Egyptian cobra that escaped the zoo in 2011 - and was found a week later. Now, we have got the complete detailed explanation and answer for everyone, who is interested!ĭid they find the missing snake at the Bronx Zoo? This is a question our experts keep getting from time to time. Has an animal ever escaped from the bronx zoo? ![]()
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