The Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck, was an automaton in the form of duck, created by Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739. The mechanical duck appeared to have the ability to eat kernels of grain, and to metabolise and defecate them. While the duck did not actually have the ability to do this – the food was collected in one inner container, and the feces being ‘produced’ from a second, so that no actual digestion took place – Vaucanson hoped that a truly digesting automaton could one day be designed.
Merde! It never happened…
Read also: The Defecating Duck, or, the Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life
