Developed by the Hirose Fukushima Lab in Japan, the robot was designed to explore the movement mechanics of snakes and how they're able to move easily with no appendages. Now that they've developed a robot that can clearly swim pretty easily in water, it's not clear what they'll use it for other than terrifying beachgoers, but I'm sure they'll come up with something a bit more useful. I hope so at least.

Hirose Fukushima Lab, via Geekologie