Warning: Spoiler Alert! If you don't want to have your suspension of disbelief, er, suspended, please do not read any further.

The penguins in Madagascar and Happy Feet are not real!

OK, so you knew that already, but you still love them anyway, right?

Our point exactly. That's why we're asking the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York, to replace the real penguins at the zoo with bionic birds.

Developed by German engineering company Festo, these robotic penguins are able to swim and communicate just like real penguins—and tap dance like the fake ones.

dvice / CC
I'm kidding about the tapping. They're more into Bollywood dancing. :)

These cutting-edge carbon copies are totally lifelike—but as fake as some zoos' concern about animal welfare—and they'll allow visitors to observe animal behavior without inflicting the stress of captivity on live penguins. Penguins are avid swimmers and divers who belong in open water—not on display in concrete enclosures that fail to come even close to simulating their natural environments.

And forget attracting a partner with a sweet song. Penguins in zoos have their mates chosen for them through breeding programs, and their chicks are often taken away to be raised by zookeepers.

It's no wonder that being pent-up in a zoo causes pimped penguins and other exploited animals to have pent-up frustration.

Here's hoping that the Rosamond Gifford Zoo will take our advice (we're offering to donate two grand toward this grand idea). I'd definitely be down with watching robotic animals.

How about you? What type of animal would you most like to see zoos replace with a robot?

Posted by Amy Elizabeth

firstshowing / CC

Tonight marks the release of another animal-free (and human-free) flick from the awesome folks at Pixar. The upcoming blockbuster WALL-E features a lonely robot on an abandoned planet whose only friend is a cockroach—portrayed in a very cute and cuddly manner without being anthropomorphized in the least. In this Entertainment Weekly article, the director calls him "our version of Jiminy Cricket"

The friendship between the main character and a cockroach really makes me wonder how much thought folks have put into how incredibly complex and resilient these little guys are and how to humanely control them as opposed to just killing them, which is futile because more will arrive later—and with a score to settle. Heck, you could get so awestruck that you snag a "Crow and Roach" T-shirt to wear out to the theater.

Beyond being pro-roach, the film also has a strong pro-environment message woven in, as WALL-E's "profession" involves compacting trash on the now over-polluted planet Earth. What more could you ask for in a children's movie? They seem to be advocating two hugely important causes and icing it off with the family- and animal-friendly tradition of Pixar. Be sure to grab the nearest 8-year-old and check this one out!

Posted by Sean Conner