Desperate koala flags down cyclist and sips water from her bottle during heatwave

A desperate koala has been pictured flagging down a cyclist and sipping water from her bottle during Australia's heatwave.

The moving incident took place near Adelaide on Friday when a group of cyclists, including Anna Heusler, spotted the animal in the middle of the road. They stopped to help it into nearby bushland after it made its way towards Heusler.

This is the moment a woman risked her life to save a koala from a wildfire:

"I stopped on my bike and he walked right up to me, quite quickly for a koala, and as I was giving him a drink from all our water bottles, he actually climbed up onto my bike," Heusler told 7News.

She subsequently shared pictures of the animal to her social media platforms.

"Australian Koala Bears suffering severe thirst in a heatwave. This Koala walked right up to me as I was descending and climbed up onto my bike while I gave him water," she captioned the image below.

This news comes as the wildfires have torn through the Adelaide Hills, burning 25,000 hectares of land, as per the Daily Mail. This has left many koalas in a desperate situation, forcing them to scavenge for food and water.

Increased efforts are being made by charities to promote the needs of koalas: 

One of the people trying to help the situation is Adelaide Koala Rescue's Jane Brister. She's currently caring for 46 koalas who have been affected by the fire.

In an interview with the Advertiser, she said: "A big problem we're noticing now is koalas are coming in starving… there's just no food."

"And part of the problem is there's often at least four days until someone finds them."

Koalas' main source of food is eucalyptus leaves, but thousands of the trees which sustain them have been destroyed in the fires.