Booger Bubbles

Looks like this little guy needs a tissue! This spiny mammal, called a short-beaked echidna (ih-KID-nuh), has a gross habit of blowing bubbles with its snot. Scientists recently discovered that this strange behavior helps the critters keep cool when it’s scorching outside.

Short-beaked echidnas live throughout Australia, including in deserts, where temperatures can climb past 38°C (100°F) during the summer. No one knew how echidnas survived the extreme heat. But in 2023, scientists used heat-sensing thermal cameras to monitor echidnas’ body temperatures in the wild. The team made a breakthrough discovery.

They found that an echidna’s nose is 10°C (18°F) cooler than the rest of its body. Scientists believe that’s because when it gets hot, the animal starts to blow snot bubbles. When the bubbles pop, slimy mucus coats its nose. Water in the mucus helps lower its body temperature through a process called evaporative cooling. As water in the mucus evaporates, turning from a liquid to a gas, energy in the form of heat is carried away. Blood in its nose is also cooled down. The blood then circulates through the animal’s body. This, in turn, cools off the echidna.

These animals have other rare abilities too. They are one of only two known monotremes, or mammals that lay eggs. (The other is the duck-billed platypus.) Also, echidnas’ noses can detect weak electrical signals given off by prey like ants and termites. “Echidnas are crazy little creatures,” says Mark Wanner, a curator at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois.