Scientists just gave remote-controlled cockroaches tiny underwater suits, and the insects kept walking for up to 3 hours because the oxygen trick could help search flooded disaster zones and maybe even extreme worlds like Mars

Search-and-rescue teams might soon have a new six-legged member that can swim. According to a study, ‘Underwater Suit-Wearing Cyborg Insect Capable of Hours-Long Diving and Terra-Aqua Travel,’ published in Nature Communications, researchers from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore and Waseda University in Japan have created a wearable diving suit for cyborg cockroaches that lets the insects breathe and move underwater for up to three hours. The work could expand where these living robots can go during disaster response, especially into flooded areas that wheeled or flying robots usually cannot reach.

What is a cyborg cockroach
Cyborg insects are real living insects that have been fitted with tiny electronic controllers that guide their movement. The cockroaches in this study are Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a species chosen for its size and durability, according to NTU Singapore. The insects move their legs using their own muscles. This means they use much less power than a comparable mechanical robot, which usually uses a battery-powered motor.

This isn’t uncharted waters for the NTU team. According to Hiroshima University, in 2021, Professor Hirotaka Sato and his colleagues showed how cyborg insects could be guided using electrodes, for search-and-rescue purposes. They followed that up in 2024 with a demonstration that a swarm of 20 cyborg insects could move as a coordinated group rather than individually.


The problem researchers had to solve
One big limitation stood in the way of the technology progressing. Cockroaches breathe through tiny holes in their bodies called spiracles, and by submerging these holes in water, the insect is completely unable to take in oxygen, the NTU and Waseda research team said. This meant previous cyborg cockroaches were entirely land-based machines, a real drawback given how often disaster zones get flooded.

Conventional rescue robots often get stuck in flooded rubble, standing puddles, and partially sunken areas after earthquakes or storms.

How the tiny diving suit works
The fix has been borrowed from human scuba diving, but without the tank. The suit, described in the Nature Communications study, comprises three components: a small 3D-printed oxygen-generation tank, a flexible waterproof shell, and four thin silicone tubes that connect directly to the cockroach’s spiracles.

Inside the tank is a sponge with manganese dioxide. When you add a little bit of diluted hydrogen peroxide, it starts a chemical reaction which releases oxygen slowly and that oxygen then goes right through the silicone tubes to the openings in the insect’s body where it breathes.

The team tested the suit inside plastic tubes simulating real conditions, including flooded, low-oxygen tunnels. The tubes could later be removed without harming the insect, and the cockroaches wearing the suit were able to stay active and mobile underwater for as long as three hours.

Why this matters for real rescue missions
According to NTU Singapore, earlier versions of these cyborg cockroaches have already been used in real search-and-rescue operations, including Operation Lionheart following the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, 2025.

Until now, those bugs had to stay on dry land. The new diving suit effectively turns a land-only cyborg into an amphibious one that can move through rubble and standing water in the same mission, and the same technique could be used to inspect flooded pipes, drains, and tunnels, which are hard for people to check directly.

The bigger picture for cyborg insect research
This diving suit builds on a broader body of work from the same lab. In a separate study, ‘Swarm navigation of cyborg-insects in unknown obstructed soft terrain,’ published in Nature Communications, a 2024 experiment showed that a coordinated swarm of 20 cyborg insects can navigate unfamiliar, obstacle-filled terrain by using a leader-follower system. Add to that swarm coordination, the new ability to go underwater, and the long-term goal becomes clear: groups of low-cost, energy-efficient living robots that can cover ground no single rescue dog, drone, or wheeled robot can manage alone.

More testing is planned in simulated disaster environments, the research team said, along with work to improve the suit’s durability and add onboard sensors. They also think that the design could be modified for use with other insects that have similar respiratory systems, such as beetles and locusts.

It’s a strange image, a cockroach in a tiny scuba suit, but for rescue teams working against the clock after a disaster, strange and effective is just what is needed.