At night, all kinds of animals migrate up to the shallows to forage, and when the sun rises, they swim back down again—a great big conveyor belt of biomass that most of us never get the chance to see. wired.trib.al/5S74D8g 1/
But now a spy swims among them: Mesobot. 2/
In the journal Science Robotics, a team of engineers and oceanographers share how they got a new autonomous underwater vehicle to lock onto movements of organisms and follow them around the ocean’s “twilight zone.” 3/
The Mesobot is a groundbreaking new tool for oceanographers because of its ability to not disturb the highly sensitive animals of the sea as it follows them using its stereo cameras and detection algorithms. 4/
Weighing 550 pounds, Mesobot looks like a giant, waterproof yellow-and-black AirPods case that operates with a fiber-optic tether attached to a research vessel at the surface or freely. 5/
Currently, the Mesobot is unable to collect animals, but in the future it could employ a suction system to nab them which would give us more insight as to what they’ve been eating and where they fit into the food web. 6/
But for now, it just observes sea creatures, giving us an inside look at the beauty of underwater migration. wired.trib.al/5S74D8g 7/
Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). wired.trib.al/cwyJvVe
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