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Project Noah Nature School
Loxodonta africana
Newborn(1-2 days old) baby elephant. Our guide stopped to show us what he originally thought was about a 2 week old baby, but then noted the umbilical cord and and lack of muscle tone and determined this was a 1-2 day old baby. He was obviously taking in his first sight and smell of a motor vehicle and kept charging us, then running back to and behind his mom(photos 2-4). Our guide felt was a first time, by both the size of mom and baby, and yet she was doing a very competent job of letting him experience his environment, not at all upset by our presence. The elephants of Chobe carry a preponderance of genes for small tusks, so that even the largest elephants appear to have juvenile tusks. They are also among the largest of the African elephants
Chobe park
This sighting is in direct contrast to the somewhat older baby rhino we spotted, whose charges alarmed his mom and put us in a moderate amount of jeopardy. This is due, in part, to the fact that Chobe is highly patrolled by military to prevent poaching, and thus the animals have felt less pressure from humans.
Spotted on Dec 30, 2013
Submitted on Jan 10, 2014
40 Comments (1–25)
This cropped up in my FB feed today as a memory. A great one.
Great story, Malcolm. I would love to witness a birth some day
We once came upon a group of elephants packed in a tight group and when they moved two of these were amongst them, one darker like yours and this patchy pink one so likely new born at that point: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/140...
It really was. We were parked where we weren't supposed to be, so after nearly 15 minutes our guide reluctantly had to move
So special Karen!
Thank you, sureka!
Beautiful!! Congratulations, Karen!
Thank you Noel!
Congratulations Karen!
Thank you, Luis, Lauren, Mona, Gilma, Tom, Ashley, Danielle and Tiz(and everyone else). As far as I know the little guy has no name: Chobe has a lot of elephants! Pretty sure hugging the baby would elicit a response from his calm mama, as tempting as it is.
Congrats Karen! Beautiful series and SOTD!
Congratulations Karen, wonderful series, wish I could hug the precious little thing.
Very cute !! Nice Series Karen.. Congratulations !!
Fantastic, a well deserved SOTD!! Congratulations, KarenSaxton.
Does the baby elephant has a name!? It is one of my favorites!
Karen congrats on SOTD, what a great sighting and photos!
Congrats Karen :)
Congrats! What a great series.
Excellent choice for a SOTD, congratulations KarenS for this, it is so very well deserved! :)
Thank you all!
Congrats Karen!
Congratulations. Super series.
Congrats Karen. It just had to be! SOTD that is...
Congratulations Karen! Your adorable baby eli is our Spotting of the Day! We look forward to seeing more great spottings from your Botswana adventure!
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Precious!
Jemma, here here