News Animals

These adorable Australian spike-balls beat the heat with snot bubbles

The finding reveals how echidnas survive in temperatures that should kill them

an echidna standing in tall grass

Echidnas, spiky egg-laying mammals that live across Australia, blow snot bubbles to keep cool, a new study finds.

Nuytsia@Tas/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

By Elise Cutts

Animals cover themselves in all kinds of unsavory fluids to keep cool. Humans sweat, kangaroos spit and some birds will urinate on themselves to survive hot days. It turns out that echidnas do something much cuter — though perhaps just as sticky (and slightly icky) — to beat the heat.