Scientists at the National Zoo in Washington wanted to know if a newborn prehensile-tailed porcupine was a boy or a girl, since its sexual organs are internal, it was impossible to tell by looking.

Because the sexual organs are internal, it can take up to six weeks before the gender can be determined using a method called anal palpation.

Not wanting to wait, the scientists decided to try pulling a quill and testing its DNA.

"We thought, since it works with hair, why not try to obtain DNA from the quill," geneticist Jesus Maldonado told the media.

To their excitement and surprise the theory worked.

It only took a week to find out the sex of this baby porcupine - without an invasive exam.

Maldonado's team took DNA from small tissue samples taken out of the quill's follicle and then used methods that are also used to determine the sex of young elephants, kit foxes, maned wolves and other mammals.

"The results on the computer screen were so clear, I felt like high-fiving everyone," said Andrew Rivara, one of Maldonado's lab assistants. "It was definitely female."

A zoo spokesman announced the female baby porcupine was named Buddha - despite the gender results.