Add echidna to the list of the world's most ungrateful animals! When 25-year-old Munro Hardy happened upon the echidna wandering in a gold mine in Australia, he grabbed the rare egg-laying mammal to save it from being run over by machineries.
Hardy pulled on a pair of leather gloves to pick up the echidna, which rolled into a ball to protect itself. So, he used a hard hat to move the spiky critter out of harm's way.
And what did the spiky monotreme (Mono-what? Look it up) to thank the man? "The little bastard crapped in my hat and then crawled under the dash in the truck and into the wiring," Hardy said.
But Hardy persevered and got the animal out of his truck and into the scrubland away from the mine. Alison Bevege of Australia's NT News has the story of the crappy end to Hardy's spiky rescue, but alas, no mention of what he did with the souvenir the echidna left in his hat: Link - via Arbroath