African elephant with a baby, standing in a grassy natural setting during spring or summer. 1:38

Rare elephant twins born into a wild herd

Elephant twins are rare in the wild. This herd has a pair of them, and the twins are not even its only newborns. more

One of the herd's females gave birth to the twins on a wild reserve in Africa. The herd's albino cow, a prized member of the group, has a newborn calf of her own. That makes three new babies at once.

The team at HERD Elephant Orphanage South Africa got close enough to film them, and the wild elephants hardly seem to mind. The grown-ups move along calm and steady, with the babies tucked in among them. One big elephant stands guard beside a calf.

The calves stay pressed to their mothers' sides. People like to say a baby elephant is stuck to its mom by invisible magnets, and these three make the case. Their trunks are tiny, and they are still figuring out the world.

African elephant with a baby, standing in a grassy natural setting during spring or summer. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Elephant twins are rare in the wild.

Twins mean twice the feeding for one mother, and well-wishers hope she has milk enough for both. For now, the herd is three babies bigger, and every one of them has a mother right there.

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