The Rare Twin Elephant Calves of Samburu, Kenya

Tourist guides on a safari drive in northern Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve witnessed a very rare sighting of a pair of elephant twins. According to the conservation organization; Save the Elephants, the twins, one male, and one female were born to a mother named Bora.

Kenya has about 36,280 elephants according to Kenya national wildlife census (2020). And twins are very rare as they only account for about 1% of all births according to Iain Douglas-Hamilton, the founder of Save the Elephants. In fact, the last time a pair of twin elephant calves were spotted in Samburu was in the year 2006 and they did not survive into adulthood. They died more than a few days after birth due to a lack of enough milk. Baby elephant consumes about 13 liters of milk per day before they begin eating plants like adults, which starts when they are about four months of age, while still continuing to feed on the same amount of milk from their mother. This can go on up to ten years.