Scientists Plan To Recreate Extinct Creatures Like Dinosaurs As Robots

Researchers hope these robotic recreations will enhance our understanding of the natural world and evolutionary history.

Scientists are looking into the idea of utilising robotics to recreate long-extinct animals like dinosaurs and marine reptiles, according to a report in Science Robotics. By imitating the motions and anatomical features of extinct animals like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, these devices may offer important new insights into evolution. The goal of these artificial recreations, according to researchers, is to improve our knowledge of evolution and the natural environment.

"We have these animals that evolution has created over millions and millions of years, but with a couple lines of code or a new 3D-printed leg we can simulate those millions of years of evolution in a single day of engineering effort," Dr Michael Ishida, of the University of Cambridge and a co-author of the review article, told The Guardian.

"Building a robot [based on these living species of fish] will hopefully give us a little bit of insight into what kind of evolutionary pressures, or what kind of mechanics, started to force fish to develop these different anatomies that would be useful on land," he said, adding that such learning would help the team develop paleo-inspired robots of extinct fish.