This footage shows cute baby naked mole-rats racing through tunnels and cuddling up to fight the cold.

The video shows the hairless naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber), born at Zurich Zoo, Switzerland, scrambling through an elaborate network of man-made tunnels made out of plastic pipes.

The images also show them chomping on sweetcorn with their long sharp teeth and huddling together to keep warm this winter.

The images were obtained by Newsflash from Zurich Zoo along with a statement saying: “They are often referred to as the ugliest animals in the world. In fact, naked mole rats are fascinating like no other animal species.

“They are mammals, but cold-blooded like amphibians. They cannot regulate their body temperature themselves. If it gets too cold in winter, they huddle together. And if that’s not enough, a naked mole rat sacrifices itself as a heating pad.

“This means that the animal sprints through the corridors, heats up its body temperature and snuggles back into the group. As a living hot water bottle.

“At our zoo, the naked mole rats have constant temperatures between 25 degrees and 32 degrees Celsius.

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“The animals never have to freeze. They can still cool down. And this is how the animals’ preference for cuddling can also be observed in the zoo: there is a pink pile of naked mole rats in the communal box, tightly packed and partly stacked on top of each other.”

The statement also said: “It’s currently a comfortable 28 degrees Celsius here. Sometimes only five animals cuddle, at peak times sometimes 25.”

Zookeeper Marco Brunner said: “We have already received information from excited and worried visitors that the naked mole rats are all dead.

“We then reassure them and explain to them that the animals simply like to cuddle, even in large numbers and then sometimes they don’t move much anymore.”