A team of engineers at Rice University has investigated how dead spiders’ legs can be reanimated. The researchers used a needle and air to activate spider legs, mimicking how limbs work in living spiders. Because the spiders are dead and used in a robotic way, engineers call this system “necrobic.”
The lead author of the related article, Faye Yap, a mechanical engineering graduate student, published the spider project in the journal Advanced Science. “Once the spider dies, it creates the perfect architecture for small-scale, naturally derived scavengers,” co-author Daniel Preston said in a statement.
Also, Rice University has released a video explaining the process of creating the necrobots and showing how it works.
While spiders are alive, they use blood to lengthen or contract their legs through a hydraulic process. The researchers euthanized the spiders they used in the study, inserting a needle into the part of the body that controls the legs, sealing them with glue, and then using air to trigger the legs to open and close.
These gripping spiders were able to lift more than their own body weight, including small objects such as another spider and parts on a circuit board.
The team envisions that necrorobic spiders may have some advantages. Small grippers can trap non-regularly shaped objects, hide in their environment, and biodegrade over time. The researchers hope to try this method with smaller spiders. They also plan to study how to trigger legs individually.
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