Certain arthropods such as the water strider and the fisher spider have acquired the unique ability to walk on the surface of the water by exploiting the phenomenon of surface tension that occurs at the airwater interface. Water striders and other water-walking arthropods distribute their weight between supporting legs, creating dimples in the water’s surface without penetrating it. These dimples push against the weight of the water strider because the water is trying to return to its original state. Numerous studies have attempted to mimic the water strider’s water walking abilities by creating robotic water striders with a similar morphological design. Despite our understanding of surface tension mechanisms, water striders are still far more adept at navigating along the free surface than their robotic counterparts, and it is clear that a deeper understanding is needed to produce robots on par with actual water striders. Such a robot would be exceptionally useful in monitoring marsh environments not suited for either floating or walking robots and would be much more easily converted into an amphibious robot because it already has the entire leg structure in place. Also, water strider robots could skate effortlessly over the surface of the water because they do not have to push water out of the way like a floating robot making it very fast and efficient…..

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• Engineering