The BBC's new wildlife series, Spy In The Wild, uses 34 animatronic beasts to infiltrate the animal kingdom and capture unprecedented footage. Among the creations are an orangutan, a wolf-cub, a meerkat, and a floating otter, all fitted with high-definition cameras behind their eyes.
The animatrons were built at the John Nolan Studio in North London, the same workshop that created the Hippogriff for the Harry Potter films. The orangutan alone took 12 people more than three months to make, with each hair individually punched in from wigs bought at a nearby market.
Construction begins with life-sized clay models, which are then covered in fibreglass moulds and filled with silicone and latex. The skeleton is built from metal and plexiglass, and the face and body are painstakingly painted. Teeth are made from the same material as human dentures, and a tiny hole in the glass eye houses the camera.
The disguises were so successful that some robots were adopted as playmates by wild animals. In Borneo, a real orangutan engaged in a sawing competition with the robotic spy. In India, a robotic infant langur monkey was so convincing that other monkeys tried to babysit it.
John Downer, the documentary-maker behind the series, said: 'Even though our Spy Orangutan was programmed to use a saw, we had no idea whether wild orangutans would do the same. But when our orangutan was seen in action, a wild one came out of the forest and not only started wielding it like a pro, it also blew the sawdust away.'
