A rat can walk by sensing air currents

Route skilfully glides even in the dark, because it sensitively feels the air currents and can figure out its movements based on them. Israeli researchers proved it in the laboratory with a clever experimental arrangement.

Exam was made in a roughly metric plastic bubble, which was supported and moved by a robotic arm. The rat stood inside the bubble in a small sled carried by another robotic arm, which the arm could move forward, front left or front right.

The rats had been taught to indicate the direction of movement they felt by touching the drinking faucet either from the front, left or right. You got a sip if the observation was correct.

If the sled moved but the bubble did not, the movement could be sensed both by the air flow and by the position and motion sense of the inner ear. If the bubble moved at the pace of the sled, the air flow was not felt, but only the sense of the inner ear was used. If the bubble moved but the sled didn’t, you only felt the air flow.

The airflow sense proved to be more accurate than the inner ear. The entire sense of touch of the hair and skin is used, not just the mustache. The rats felt that the whiskers were shaved, the researchers say in Current Biology.

Published in Science in Nature 8/24