A quirk of biology which means a light shone into a gecko's ear can be seen from the other side could provide inspiration for future robots.
Small animals like frogs and geckos have a tunnel that connects their eardrums, helping them to tell where a sound is coming from.
The system could one day give us robots that can amplify and locate sounds without requiring any energy to do so.
Researchers at the Technical University of Munich have been examining how small animals hear.
The system is different to that of larger mammals, which locate the source of a sound by judging the delay between a sound reaching one ear and then reaching the other.
The system works well on larger heads, but for smaller heads the system does not work.
The tunnel between the ears in geckos and other small animals helps to amplify the difference, and the team leader says the system could work in robots.
Leo van Hemmen said that as the system is purely structural, it does not require any energy.
"The amplitude difference occurs solely through the coupling of the two ears.
"I can very well imagine applications in robotics, because this kind of amplification doesn’t need energy."
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