Similarities between bond formation in transition metal complexes and chemisorption on solid surfaces form the basis of the relationship between homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. We find that hydrogen interacts in a complicated manner with the two sites that have an incomplete coordination environment-Ru cus and O bridge -on the RuO 2 (110) surface (Figure 1). Upon exposure at 85 K of the RuO 2 catalyst to hydrogen gas, a H 2 molecule, instead of dissociating at Ru cus , weakly adsorbs as dihydrogen on top of the Ru cus atom and interacts dissociatively with the O bridge atom to form a metastable dihydride (waterlike) complex, which transforms into the stable monohydride when heated further. The combination of low-temperature ultrahigh vacuum experiments in conjunction with density-functional theory (DFT) calculations provides a detailed insight into the coordination chemistry of a solid surface, which exhibits a remarkable correlation with the chemistry of single-atom transition-metal complexes. The binding of hydrogen, both with transition-metal complexes (i.e. hydride formation) [1] and with surfaces, [2] generally occurs concurrently with dissociation of the ligand. The discovery of h 2 -H 2 (dihydrogen) complexes, in which the HÀH bond remains intact, was surprising, [3] since