When the great Rudyard Kipling wrote his "Just So Stories", he included the story of 'how the elephant got his trunk' ...... 'he trod on what he thought was a log of wood at the very edge of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees. But it was really the Crocodile, O Best Beloved, and the Crocodile winked one eye--like this!' ....
The little elephant enquires what the Crocodile eats for tea, 'Then the Elephant's Child put his head down close to the Crocodile's musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose, which up to that very week, day, hour, and minute, had been no bigger than a boot, though much more useful.' 'I think,' said the Crocodile--and he said it between his teeth, like this--'I think to-day I will begin with Elephant's Child!'
They struggle for hours and 'the Elephant's Child's nose kept on stretching; and the Elephant's Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching; and the Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant's Child's nose grew longer and longer ....' well you get the idea. I was read the story as a child, as you may well have been but would you ever, as an adult think to see this is truth?
Well this mummy Elephant gets her trunk - the hard way. As these photos show, Kipling's just so stories may have an element of truth, with crocodiles and elephants probably acting out the story for millennia .....
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| The elephant was drinking from the River Luangwa with her baby when a crocodile leapt out of the water and grabbed hold of her trunk. |
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| She was initially brought down to her knees, as the predator thrashed around. |
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| But the elephant eventually summoned the strength to walk away from the water, dragging the still-attached crocodile with her for several metres |
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| The crocodile then let go. However, as the elephants ran away, the baby tripped and fell. The pair were seen feeding from the river later in the day. |
Sometimes fact is as strange as fiction ......
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