As you recognise a long-lost family member in the distance, it can be instinct to run towards them and give them a big hug.
And the same is true for elephants, it seems. In this video, a young calf travelling with a parent bounds forward, then comes to a stop as it excitedly waits for its mother to catch up.
Then, the two adult elephants brush each other and connect trunks. It’s achingly cute, and makes you think that they haven’t seen each other for quite a while. The mother continues to nuzzle in his ear as another young elephant joins the herd, while the tiny calf looks on.
This cute video was taken at the Addo Elephant Park in South Africa, where more than 450 elephants live across 180,000 hectares of land.
African elephants are mainly found at this park, and although there were a few million of them at the start of the 20th century, the population has fallen to between 450,000 and 700,000 due to poaching.
