In Florida (United States) They have a serious and very close problem with the piton from Burma, and they will use rabbits robot To try to solve it. The saddest thing is that some of them do not return …
The Burma Python (Python bivittatus), originally from India and Pakistan, is the sixth largest snake world and the animal with more bones, adding a total of 872. Can measure up to six meters long and weigh more than 100 kilos. Young are aggressive, but adults become docile. They do not attack people and even get caught.
50 years ago, when exotic pets were fashionable, they were introduced into Florida. People got tired of them and released them in the swamps. Half a century later they have spread throughout Florida, becoming one of the alpha predators, and endangering native species.
Burmania’s hunting with robot rabbits
Mike ivory / Facebook
Scientists want to reduce their population, and even eliminate it completely from Florida, being an invasive species.
The problem is that, despite its enormous size, Burma’s pythons are experts hiding in the weed, or in the treetopsso they are very difficult to find.
Researchers at the University of Florida tried by placing cages with real rabbits, but it is not practical. You have to cover a huge surface, and go almost every day to clean the cages and feed the animals.
So now they will try the Robot rabbits That you can see below. Actually these are stuffed animals to those who have removed the filling, and inside they have placed engines, so that the rabbit moves.
They also have A camera with animal recognition through AI. If the robot rabbit sees a snake, it will notify the researchers, to capture it.
The pythons hunt for heatso these robotic rabbits have heating inside to reach the body temperature of these animals, which varies between 38 and 40 degrees Celsius.
South Florida Water Management District
The advantage of using robots is that they do not need cage or food, although they have heating surely you have to change the batteries every few days.
These scientists from the University of Florida do not know how pythons will react, if they will approach out of curiosity, or will not fall into the trap. If the latter occurs, they keep an ace hidden in the sleeve, he explains Popular Science: Spray robot rabbits with rabbit urine.
«If we can observe a statistically significant number of pythons that come to investigate these robotic rabbits and the pens, it would be a success, because at this time the pythons do an excellent job keeping hidden,» confesses with resignation Mike Kirkland, chief chief specialized in invading animals of the water management district of the southern Florida, to the middle WINK.
The capture of the Burma Python has begun in Florida, and 40 robot rabbits They will play an essential role.
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Tags: Artificial, viral, curiosities, robotics, robots