An elephant in Kenya has given birth to twins, an extremely rare event, a conservation group has said.
Save the Elephants said the twins – one male and one female – were born to a mother named Bora.
They were first spotted by lucky tourist guides on a safari drive at the weekend in Samburu reserve in northern Kenya.
Videos show the days-old newborns getting accustomed to their savannah surroundings with their doting mother and an older sibling, Bora's first calf, born in 2017.
African elephants have the largest gestation period of any living mammal, carrying their young for nearly 22 months, and give birth roughly every four years.
"Twins are rarely encountered in elephant populations and form about only one per cent of births," Save the Elephants' founder Iain Douglas-Hamilton said.
However, elephant twins often do not fare so well. The last pair of twins born in Samburu, in 2006, failed to survive more than a few days.
"Quite often the mothers don't have enough milk to support two calves," Mr Douglas-Hamilton said.
"The next few days will be touch-and-go for the new twins, but we all have our fingers crossed for their survival."
There are an estimated 36,280 elephants in Kenya, according to the country's first national wildlife census conducted last year.
That figure represented a 12 per cent increase in population numbers recorded in 2014, when killing for ivory was higher.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said last year that poaching and habitat destruction, particularly due to land conversion for agriculture, had had a devastating effect on elephant numbers in Africa as a whole.
The population of African savannah elephants plunged by at least 60 per cent in the last half-century, prompting their reclassification as "endangered" in the latest update to the IUCN's "Red List" of threatened species.
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
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The UAE's journey to space
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MATCH INFO
CAF Champions League semi-finals first-leg fixtures
Tuesday:
Primeiro Agosto (ANG) v Esperance (TUN) (8pm UAE)
Al Ahly (EGY) v Entente Setif (ALG) (11PM)
Second legs:
October 23
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Dhadak
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Name: Thndr
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Palestine and Israel - live updates
Warlight,
Michael Ondaatje, Knopf
Who has been sanctioned?
Daniella Weiss and Nachala
Described as 'the grandmother of the settler movement', she has encouraged the expansion of settlements for decades. The 79 year old leads radical settler movement Nachala, whose aim is for Israel to annex Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it helps settlers built outposts.
Harel Libi & Libi Construction and Infrastructure
Libi has been involved in threatening and perpetuating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians. His firm has provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts.
Zohar Sabah
Runs a settler outpost named Zohar’s Farm and has previously faced charges of violence against Palestinians. He was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for allegedly participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat.
Coco’s Farm and Neria’s Farm
These are illegal outposts in the West Bank, which are at the vanguard of the settler movement. According to the UK, they are associated with people who have been involved in enabling, inciting, promoting or providing support for activities that amount to “serious abuse”.
