Baby elephant struggles to drink water with trunk before using his mouth

It’s fascinating to watch how elephants use their trunks to drink water. The baby elephant seen in this video took a different approach after deciding that shoving its face into the water for a drink was much easier than using its trunk.

Besides being the largest land mammal on earth, elephants are one of the most amusing and interesting wild animals to find while on a safari in Africa. Probably the most striking feature of an elephant is its trunk. An elephant’s trunk is a unique apparatus not shared by any other mammal on earth. During a recent safari in Kruger National Park, we came across a herd of elephants standing around a watering hole busy drinking. We were fascinated by how meticulous and precise the elephants were in using their trunks to slowly slurp up just enough water before spraying it into their mouths. For baby elephants, mastering the task of drinking water with their trunks takes a lot of practice during the first two years of life. We managed to see this first hand when the most adorable male baby elephant decided to also have a drink in the manner the adults do.

This task seemed more like a bit of a struggle for the youngster. We could see how the water just streamed back out of his trunk and mouth every time he attempted to get a drink of water. At first the baby elephant looked a little hopeless in his attempts but he was not bothered at all as he had a much easier and quicker way of drinking than any of the other elephants. To our amazement the baby elephant shoved his face in the water and took a few big gulps of water. It looked awkward and hilarious at the same but it was clearly effective. The baby elephant then continued to practice the use of his trunk before he decided one more time that drinking straight with his mouth is just so much quicker and easier than practicing to so the proper thing. It was such an amazing experience watching the little fellow going about his own way of doing something like drinking water.