Despite the fact they look so darn cute when they're doing it, koalas hug trees for a much more practical reason than to invite the attention of picture-taking tourists.

Embracing trees, it turns out, is the way koalas cool themselves off, says a new thermal imaging study of the marsupials living on French Island, located approximately 50 miles, or 80 kilometers, southeast of Melbourne.

Led by Natalie Briscoe from Melbourne University's botany department, researchers found when temperatures exceeded the high 80s Fahrenheit, tree hugging both cooled and reduced the extent of dehydration for the animals, which rarely drink water, which they ingest instead through food.

Findings from the study, published in the journal Biology Letters, showed as much as a five degree temperature difference between tree trunks and the surrounding air.

The koalas, the researchers discovered, maximize the cooling properties of the trees by hanging on top of larger branches, as well as hugging trunks -- both positions of which involved the greatest surface area of the koalas' bodies.

"Access to these trees can save about half the water a koala would need to keep cool on a hot day," Briscoe said in a report by Australia-based publication The Land.

University ecologist Michael Kearney suggested the trees remain so much cooler because they absorb cool water from deep underground.

"So where the ground temperature is cool ... the effect of that water coming up through the tree could create quite a big offset," he said in the story by The Land.

Kearney also noted the studied koalas, which have thinner fur on their bellies, also seemed to prefer cooling off in hot conditions in acacias over eucalyptus, also known as gum trees.

The study suggests cool tree trunks will become an increasingly important habitat as extreme heat events grow more frequent and severe. It also emphasizes the importance of old, established trees.

The researchers believe their findings also hold implications for other tree-dwelling species, such as primates, leopards, birds and invertebrates.

According to the the Website bearlife.org, the koala is listed under the United States Endangered Species Act as threatened, even though the koala does not naturally live in the U.S.

In the koala's native Australia, the "bears" are granted no uniform status, the site continues, so status is dependent on each particular region of each Australian state. That means while some areas Down Under list koalas as vulnerable or rare, others still consider them common.