Developed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Insbot has learned how to mimic cockroaches' behaviour and interact with a colony of the insects. The device was developed to show how artificial systems could interact with animals in future mixed societies, Gilles Caprari and colleagues report in the latest edition of IEEE Robotics and Automation (vol 12, p 58).

In addition to a host of touch sensors that allow it to interact with the roaches, Insbot can secrete chemicals that mimic the pheromones with which they communicate. So accepted has the robot become in roach society that it can even lure the insects from the safe, dark shelters they prefer to a much brighter one.