Elephants, also known as gentle giants live in tight bonded female-led herds as it gives them a sense of community, protection, and support. Their strong kinship and maternal ties come to the fore when there is a danger posed to their family members, especially to an offspring. Many video of elephant herds coming together to protect younger elephants have gone viral on the internet. In one such clip that is being views widely on social media, a herd of elephants can be seen protecting calves from a possible lion attack.
The video was shared on the microblogging site Twitter by Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Susanta Nanda, who regularly shares videos of animals on social media that garner a lot of views and likes
"On seeing the lion, elephants form a circle around the young calves to protect the young baby. In wild, no animal does it better than elephant herd," read the caption of the post shared by Nanda.
Since being shared the clip has amassed 494.5k views, 13.9k likes and several comments.
"Elephants have immense intellect capacity and instant decision making abilities. Their protective instincts are huge. They are the super moms," commented one user on seeing the video.
"Wow, natural instinct on full display! Absolutely amazing - each elephant knew what it had to do. The little ones came to the centre while the bigger ones formed a circle!," wrote another user.
"They acted with lightning speed and perfection like well trained army soldiers , each one also knew which side to cover and their area of responsibility.. brilliant," commented a third.
"Is there anything that makes one hate elephants. Every behavior of them are too good," wrote a fourth.