Young elephant's awkward attempt climbing over his big brother during mud bath

Rumble — The Kruger National Park is a pristine African wilderness area filled with a great variety of wild animal and plant life. Thousands of people visit the park every year to see wildlife in their natural environment. Watching animals going about their daily activities in their natural environment is a great experience for anyone appreciating nature. One of the most popular species is none other than the largest land mammal on this planet, the African elephant. Not only are they big, elephants are also incredibly intelligent and fascinatingly complex in their behavior. We were driving on safari through the park on a hot summer day when we came across a herd of elephants busy cooling down in a large mud wallow. Watching elephants enjoying a mud bath is always very entertaining, specially when they start wrestling and playing around in the mud. While watching the herd messing around in the mud our attention was drawn to a young male elephant, slowly starting to put his front feet on top of his bigger brother. The big elephant brother was lying flat on his side in the mud. The young elephant then proceeded to put both his front legs on top of his brother. It looked like he was pinning down his brother in a mud wrestling match. To our amusement, the young elephant then proceeded to climb right over his brother in a very awkward manner. Head first, the young elephant then slid down the side of his brother, making for very entertaining viewing. The bigger brother did not seem entertained by his young brother climbing over him and interrupting his mud bath. In the end the big elephant brother gave his young brother a slight kick in attempt to get him to move off, clearly showing he had enough of his brother interrupting his mud bath. The young elephant looked like he couldn’t be bothered by his brother’s irritation with him. It was hilarious when we realized how much most brothers will be able to relate to this kind of behavior.