Bionic Beasts

Saving Animal Lives with Artificial Flippers, Legs, and Beaks

By: Jolene Gutiérrez

Narrated by: Book Buddy Digital Media

What happens when a young elephant steps on a buried land mine? What happens when a sea turtle’s flipper is injured by a predator? Thanks to recent advances in technology, we have new ways to design and build prosthetic body parts that can help these animals thrive.

Meet an Asian elephant named Mosha, a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle named Lola, a German Shepherd named Cassidy, a greylag goose named Vitória, and Pirate, a Berkshire-Tamworth pig. Each of these animals was struggling, but through a variety of techniques and technologies, humans created devices that enabled the animals to live and move more comfortably. Discover the stories of how veterinarians, doctors, and even students from around the world used 3D printing and other techniques to build bionic body parts for these amazing animals.

©2020 Jolene Gutiérrez (P)2021 Lerner Digital™

Critic reviews

"Gutiérrez profiles five 'bionic beasts,' animals whose prosthetic body parts help them to function. Matter-of-factly, she introduces three animals that each have only three legs: Lola, a Kemp's ridley sea turtle from Texas; Mosha, an Asian elephant from Myanmar; and Cassidy, a German shepherd from New York. Pirate, a Berkshire-Tamworth pig from Vancouver Island, has a deformed leg; Vitória, a greylag goose from Brazil, lacks a beak. The animals struggled to move or eat until veterinarians, designers, and doctors teamed up to create innovative prostheses and orthoses. The prostheses' complex design processes are clearly described.... Though technology is the primary focus, the author acknowledges political and environmental issues in the animals' habitats, such as ongoing civil wars in Myanmar and oceans cluttered with plastic waste. Activities follow each profile. Some attempt to mimic the teams' challenges by constructing mock prostheses from household items and exploring strengths and weaknesses of various designs.... Scientifically inclined readers will enjoy this in-depth application of STEM to disabled animals." (Kirkus Reviews)

"This title discusses animals that have been injured and given prostheses to improve their lives. Gutiérrez highlights five different animals, educates readers on each particular species, and explains how they became injured. The narratives also detail how the prostheses were made for each animal, as making a flipper for an injured turtle is a different process than constructing a foreleg for an elephant. Readers interested in biomedical technology will appreciate the instructions for building small-scale prosthetic models using household items. Verdict: Examining environmentalism, animal rescue, and technological possibility, this science-filled book for upper-elementary to middle school readers entertains in many forms." (School Library Journal)