Squirrels 'sploot' to beat the heat: A furry fight against sizzling summer temperatures

WASHINGTON (TND) — Photos are popping up across social media of squirrels splaying out to try and beat the excessive heat hitting the U.S.

Otherwise known as "splooting," the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed critters use it as a coping mechanism to cool their body temperature.

Sunny Corrao with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation spoke with NPR and explained it's about transferring heat away from their bodies.

They're trying to find a cool space, and if they can put as much of their core body on to a cool space, then the heat is going to transfer from their bodies to the other surface. So in the case of squirrels, you'll often see them maybe on a shady sidewalk, or a park path, or in the grass, just splayed out.

Humans can sweat when they need to cool down but animals have to resort to other behaviors to cool off.

The heat wave hitting the U.S. seems to continue through Monday withThe National Weather Service predicting 116 degrees in Phoenix and 113 degrees in Las Vegas.

Animal physiologist Andrea Rummel said splooting can keep squirrels cool enough for now but might not be enough if temperatures continue to rise.

"For every kind of thermal regulatory mechanism, there is a point at which it doesn't work anymore, and that depends on environmental temperature. So it's going to get harder and harder for squirrels to sploot effectively – for humans to sweat effectively – as temperatures rise," Rummel said.