Robotics helps 290-million-year-old fossil walk again

The life-size beast replica is created by fossils and equipped with the necessary electronic equipment to reproduce its movements in real life. This creature has not fully recovered its life - just its movement. Finally, the team has an electronic animation reproduction of Orabates pabsti. The result is what they call "OroBOT."

OroBOT's complete body is made of 3D printed plastic and steel parts. This model is not exactly the same size as the original model - it is a bit large in size to give the robot the necessary space to move accurately using the technology.

Above you will find that OroBOT represents a powerful and very agile creature that may look a bit like a crocodile.

The team used a well-preserved ancient footprint as a model for the creature to walk. Its gait, speed and angle of movement are all factors that find the right way to accurately represent the true walking of a creature.

"Our indicators indicate that Orobates has shown a more advanced sport than the previous four-legged animals," Nyakatura et al. said in a research paper published this week in Nature. “This shows that the development of efficient land-based exercise precedes the evolution of amniotic animals.”