Baby elephant goes head-to-head in shoving contest with brother

While it is true that size does matter when involved in pushing and shoving, the right attitude on the other hand can make a huge difference, no matter the size of your opponent. Watch how a baby elephant shows that a determined attitude can go a long way, even when size is not on your side.

It was during a late afternoon safari in the Kruger National Park when we came across a herd of elephants. As a safari guide you know that it is always wise to switch off your vehicle and observe. Elephants are almost always active and spending time watching a herd of elephants will mostly deliver some sort of entertaining behaviour. It was a large herd and the elephants were scattered all around us in smaller groups busy feeding. A sudden movement to my left drew my attention to two young male elephants, looking very busy.

Suddenly the young elephants had everyone’s attention when they came smashing through the shrub. The one elephant still looked like a baby elephant while his older brother seemed considerably larger in size. Even though it might seem that the two young elephants were just fooling around, these displays are part of a young male elephant’s life. From an early age, young males establish a hierarchy through these ‘play fights’ that includes head butting, pushing, ramming and shoving each other with the head. Due to elephants being the largest land mammals on the planet, dominance in the hierarchy is established through size. It was so adorable to watch the young elephants going about their battle of pushing and butting each other around with their heads.

What stood out the most about the events unfolding in front of us was how tenacious the baby elephant was, showing a real fighter attitude even though he was outsized by his brother. The smaller elephant stood his ground, pushing back as hard as he could. Near the end of the video the baby elephant even mock charged towards his bigger brother, giving him a fright in the process. After that, the bigger elephant brother decided that enough was enough and finally pushed his annoying little brother one last time for a good distance till the baby elephant finally realized that in the elephant world size really does matter.