Kung Fu cockroaches may hold a key to salvation during the zombie apocalypse.

Just look to their impressive defensive maneuvers.

Vanderbilt University biologist Ken Catania in a new report shows American cockroaches are far from the helpless, scurrying creepy-crawlies that give most of us a case of the heeby-jeebies.

In fact, according to the report from Catania published Wednesday in Karger, cockroaches fight back — at least when it is against a wasp that uses the roach as an incubator for its offspring.

Catania, who studies interactions between predators and prey, heard about cockroaches protecting themselves from the emerald cockroach wasps' zombifying stings, but set out to document the roach's defensive maneuver.

After paralyzing and feeding on the roach, the emerald cockroach wasp lays an egg that, when hatched, feeds and kills its zombie host.

Catania's research found, through the use of an ultra slow-speed video, that roaches use several techniques to defend from the wasp's sting, including a hind leg back kick.

“The cockroach has a suite of behaviors that it can deploy to fend off the zombie-makers, and this starts out with what I call the ‘en garde’ position, like in fencing,” said Catania in a Vanderbilt news release about his research. “That allows the roach to move its antenna toward the wasp so it can track an approaching attack and aim kicks at the head and body of the wasp, and that’s one of the most efficient deterrents.

"It’s reminiscent of what a movie character would do when a zombie is coming after them."

The kick, Catania found in his research, worked for 63 percent of adult cockroaches that tried it.

The eventual kick to the head isn't a deathblow to the wasp. But it is enough to deter it.

But juvenile roaches seldom stopped the wasp, Catania's research found.

“The wasp," Catania said, "usually figures out there’s a smaller and less defensive cockroach out there to be had."

Reach Jason Gonzales at jagonzales@tennessean.com and on Twitter @ByJasonGonzales.