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Coté’s relationship with his father, who initiated his son into the mysteries of these hard-working hexapods, is described with great affection.

That’s because while our minds may have evolved, our eyes have not: To many, the presence of coldblooded hexapods on a plate is still a source of revulsion.

This was likely the trait that helped hexapod diversity take off; winged insects can zip away from predators and get at otherwise unreachable foods such as leaves and other insects.

As well as the hexapod robot, the researchers also made a fluid-filled robotic hand that can pick up delicate objects without breaking them.

To help their hexapod recover faster than previous machines, Mouret's team equipped it with a library of about 13,000 walking patterns that were calculated in advance using a computer model of the robot.