A small robot being driven by a moth

A small, two-wheeled robot has been driven by a male silkmoth to track down the sex pheromone usually given off by a female. The robot, created by researchers from the University of Tokyo, has been used to characterise the silkmoth’s tracking behaviours and it is hoped that these can be applied to other autonomous robots so they can track down smells, and subsequent sources, of environmental spills and leaks when fitted with highly sensitive sensors. The results have been published in IOP Pu