Urohidrosis

Urohidrosis (sometimes mis-spelled "urohydrosis")is the habit in some birds of defecating onto the scaly portions of the legs as a cooling mechanism, using evaporative cooling of the fluids. Several species of storks and New World vultures exhibit this behaviour. Birds' droppings consist of feces and urine, which are excreted together through the cloaca. The term is also used to describe the analogous behaviour in seals that cool themselves while basking by urinating on their hind flippers. "Hidrosis" is the medical term for sweating from Ancient Greek, and the word "urohidrosis" was coined by M. P. Kahl in 1963: