UNTIL recently, most robots could be thought of as belonging to
one of two phyla. The Widgetophora, equipped with claws, grabs
and wheels, stuck to the essentials and did not try too hard to
look like anything other than machines (think R2-D2). The
Anthropoidea, by contrast, did their best to look like their
creators—sporting arms with proper hands, legs with real feet,
and faces (think C-3PO). The few animal-like robots that fell
between these extremes were usually built to resemble pets
(Sony’s robot dog, AIBO, for example) and were, in truth, not
much more than just amusing toys. They are toys no longer,
though, for it has belatedly dawned on robot engineers that they
are missing a trick. The great natural designer, evolution, has
come up with solutions to problems that neither the Widgetophora
nor the Anthropoidea can manage. Why not copy these proven
models, the engineers wondered, rather than trying to outguess 4
billion years of natural selection? The result has been a
flourishing of animal-like robots