Baby Elephant Picks Up Piece Of Bark With Trunk To Give Itch A Scratch

They say that a dog’s bark is worse than its bite, but what about an elephant’s bark?

A baby elephant has posed that bizarre question by using a piece of bark from a tree to reach an itch that it just could not scratch.

As these images show, the elephant calf devised a clever way of hitting an itchy spot on its back.

The baby in the Kruger National Park in South Africa grabbed the bark from the ground with its trunk and spun it over to scratch its back.

The scratching lasted about half an hour, until the calf’s mother lost patience and called her offspring back.

The pictures were taken by South African photographer Sean Parker, who caught the calf in scratching action.

“Watching the calf with the stick was delightful,” he told the Daily Mail. “The clouds had gathered and a gentle rain was falling, when this elephant cow attempted to get her two babies across a dirt road.

“She really seemed to be struggling to control them and one suddenly broke rank. It then proceeded to delight us by playing with a piece of bark it found on the road.

“It looked like it was trying to get an itch on his back but ended up only getting its trunk. This playtime lasted for about half an hour until the frustrated cow let out a thunderous trumpet and the youngster scuttled back to her.”

(Pictures: Caters)