An international team of scientists developed a tiny robot designed like the water strider insect that also posses its trademark ability: hopping along the surface of water.

Their work published in the journal Science, the Seoul- and Boston-based researchers believe the tiny bot can help measure water pollution, but they are not looking to commercialize their creation, BBC News reported.

"Water's surface needs to be pressed at the right speed for an adequate amount of time, up to a certain depth, in order to achieve jumping," study's co-senior author Kyu Jin Cho, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Seoul National University (SNU), said in a press release. "The water strider is capable of doing all these things flawlessly."

Je-Sung Koh, a postdoctoral fellow at the Wyss Institute and the Harvard Paulson School, conducted most of his research as a doctoral candidate at SNU. He and his colleagues determined the robot needed to have its legs in contact with the water until the last possible moment to make leaping possible.

"Using its legs to push down on water, the natural water strider exerts the maximum amount of force just below the threshold that would break the water's surface," Koh said in the release.

The Harvard Paulson School and Wyss Institute collaborated on the robot's body, which is extremely lightweight and folder over on itself.

Said Robert Wood, a study co-author and Wyss Institute Core Faculty member, "The resulting robotic insects can achieve the same momentum and height that could be generated during a rapid jump on firm ground - but instead can do so on water - by spreading out the jumping thrust over a longer amount of time and in sustaining prolonged contact with the water's surface."