Rise of the Nature-Inspired Robots (Videos)

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TIME magazine recently rounded up 10 robots inspired by animals and insects. We frequently cover biomimicry in these pages, and these examples make for a nifty reminder why: Because it's effing cool. As TIME's Keith Wagstaff notes, "All the research in the world can't beat millions of years of evolution. Today's roboticists are increasingly looking to nature for inspiration, creating robots that move and behave with uncanny similarity to living animals."

Be sure to check out the whole feature, but here are a few of my favorites:

That'd be the pollution-cleaning robotic fish, which we've nodded to before.

Yes, that's an ornithopter that was created in a 3D printer.

And finally, here's a robot that mines the ostrich's running prowess, eventually to be used to deliver supplies in disaster relief efforts. Cool.