Sage grouse robot video!

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Ray Ring | Apr 01, 2009 04:55 PM

Even though today is April Fool's Day, I think this is not made up.

Scientists studying sage grouse behavior in Wyoming have built an amusing but useful grouse robot. The robot looks like a grouse, if you have bad eyesight. It runs on a little railroad track that goes into a lek (mating ground). The grouse robot even has a camera that enables the scientists to see from the robot's perspective. They shoot video, as female and male grouse approach the robot kind of checking it out. And I have to presume, the real live grouse are thinking, what the gobbledy-heck?

And it is, of course, on YouTube:

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