Monkeys communicate with a robot

Risingbd Desk: For those of you mourning the end of 'Planet Earth II', there's good news – a new animal documentary is set to hit our screens this week.

Spy in the Wild is the BBC's latest documentary, in which cameras are concealed within lifelike robots, tracking how animals interact with them in the wild.

In the first episode, a group of langur monkeys mistakes a robot as one of its own, and even goes into a state of grief when the robot is mistakenly dropped from a height.

The documentary is set to preview on UK screens on Thursday, and a new advert shows what is in store.

In the first episode, an African spotted dog can be seen approaching one of the robots, while an otter happily swims alongside another.

But one of the most heart-wrenching moments involves a group of langur monkeys in India.

The monkeys amazingly take in one of the robot babies as their own, becoming attached to it.

But when the robot is accidentally dropped, the monkeys go into a state of grief, hugging each other for comfort.

Matthew Gordon, senior producer of the programme, said: 'We felt this calm and silence coming over them.

All the noise they were making at the beginning just went completely silent and then they hugged each other.'

In other adorable scenes, a monkey takes in a robot kitten as its own, taking it in and cuddling it to protect it from predators.

John Downer, executive producer of the programme, said: 'It was a voyage of discovery. We were never quite certain what we were going to discover.

'You never know you're going to be getting a chimp who takes a kitten as a pet. That is extraordinary.

'It was so unexpected and had never been filmed before.'

Other creatures taking centre stage in the series will include crocodiles, ostriches, orangutans and meerkats.

This isn't the first time that robots have been used to capture footage of animals in their natural habitat.

In 2013, the same production company made a documentary called 'Penguins: Spy in the Huddle', looking at the secret lives of penguins.

Seventeen robotic cameras, shaped like eggs, chicks and lumps of snow, filmed more than 1,000 hours of footage over 300 days in Antarctic temperatures as low as -40°C.

Mr Downer said: 'In the 35 years I have been making wildlife films, we have never got so close to any subject for so long.

'There's so much detail that you cannot watch without being moved by how much penguins are driven by the same instincts to mate and protect their young as we are.'

'Spy In The Wild' begins on Thursday at 8pm on BBC1.

Source: The Mail

risingbd/Jan 10, 2017/Mukul