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World Service,3 mins

How prickly echidnas stay cool in the heat

Newsday

Available for over a year

How to keep cool in hot weather is a growing problem for all of us as our planet warms up - but now a team of scientists have found out there is one species on earth that has developed a unique trick in order to beat the heat - and that's by blowing snot bubbles. The echidna is unique to Australia and New Guinea and is an egg laying mammal that can best be described as looking like a mini anteater with spikes. Echidna's are unable to sweat or lick their bodies - so they create a mucus ball. Professor Philip Withers from Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, says the echidnas are primitive and do not have the physiological capacity to cool down so they have developed blowing snot bubbles up to about a centimetre in diameter that wets the nose and has a cooling mechanism. (Photo: An echidna. Credit: Getty Images)

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