TWIN ELEPHANTS BORN IN KENYA

Local tour guides have spotted twin elephant calves at the Samburu game reserve in Kenya.

Twins among elephants are extremely rare, accounting for only 1% of elephant births.

The BBC reports that they are only the second set of twin calves ever to have been encountered by local conservation charity Save The Elephants.

The charity says the last known case was recorded back in 2006. Unfortunately, they didn’t survive long and died soon after birth. Because twins are so rare, elephant mothers usually don’t have enough milk to feed both calves and then one of them, sometimes both of them, die.

What makes this even more special is that the twins are African elephants, an endangered species that’s been put on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List.

African elephants have the longest gestation period of any mammal. They carry their young for almost two years and only give birth every four years.

At this stage, everyone is keeping their fingers crossed that both twins will survive, but man can only watch from afar as we have to accept what nature intended.

Image credit: France24