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back to article Robot gender-bending reptile is a lover, not a fighter

New Zealand boffins have deployed an undercover robotic reptile into the wild in order to boost the success of gender-bending creature breeding programmes, it has emerged. The National Geographic reports that the tuatara lizard-like reptiles, a prehistoric species which is the sole survivor of a family dating back 200 million …

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  1. Tim Nicholas

    It's Weta, not WETA.

    Seriously, it's an insect, not an acronym. Check www.wetafx.co.nz for further confirmation.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm scared

    First the Register tells us the robots serve our lizard overlords; now you're telling that that it's possible the lizards are actually robots!

    Still good luck to Weta and their necrogecko - I haven't seen a realistic dead lizard simulator since I upgraded from Windows ME.

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  3. Graham Dawson Silver badge

    Wait a minute...

    We're talking about a 200 million year old line of creatures, right? A species that has survived several ice-ages, hot spots, cold periods and warm epochs, and dates from a time when temperatures were several degrees higher than they are today, yet the miniscule temperature change predicted by the end of this century is somehow a threat to the buggers?

    I don't think so.

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  4. Mike Moyle

    The wrong subcontractor, perhaps...?

    Perhaps, rather than hiring the services of a movie-special-effects company, Dr. Moore should have hired a manufacturer with experience in the field of enticing the chronically lazy/socially maladjusted:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/22/android_begats_armageddon_machine/

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  5. Ross Arnold

    Re: Wait a minute...

    Unfortunately the Tuatara population has already been severely reduced by habitat loss etc.

    Perhaps they're in a more precarious position now than during previous climate shifts?

    > Graham Dawson:

    > We're talking about a 200 million year old line of creatures, right?

    > A species that has survived several ice-ages, hot spots, cold periods

    > and warm epochs, and dates from a time when temperatures were

    > several degrees higher than they are today, yet the miniscule

    > temperature change predicted by the end of this century is somehow

    > a threat to the buggers?

    >

    > I don't think so.

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  6. Ishkandar

    Must be something in the water...

    The lizards' behavior does not seem to differ greatly from that of the humans' down at the pub in Kiwiland (including the mouthing bit) !!

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  7. Naiirita

    not that odd.

    Its not that odd for sex to be temp. dependent, a lot of turtles and fish are the same way.

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