It may not qualify as the oldest trick in the book, but still, you wouldn't think that a male sage grouse would fall for the seductive whiles of a robotic female sage grouse. But Gail Patricelli, an assistant professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California at Davis, is using just such a ploy to learn about the evolution of social behavior.

Speaking at the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago, Patricelli described how she and her team collaborated with engineers to create female sage grouse robots, enabling the researchers to learn why "the male sage grouse need not only a big flashy display, but also the ability to use it appropriately" when courting a female.

In a short interview with Science Update, the daily 60-second radio show produced by AAAS,  Particelli said that using a robotic female allows the team to "compare males and how they respond, how responsive are they to the robots and try to understand how that relates to their success in convincing real females to mate."

In a separate AAAS podcast interview, Particelli said that her research is helping scientists understand the evolution of social behavior--with some potential application for courting a human woman.

Filing from the AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago, Reuters correspondent Julie Steenhuysen wrote that Particelli's robot-bird had a built-in microphone and camera to capture even the smallest mating response of the males, especially the struted tail feathers and puffed large chest sacs for which they're famous.

The experiments suggest that the best male lovers are responsive to their female  counterparts, wrote New Scientist online reporter Ewen Callaway, and are able to adjust their courtship accordingly.