This elephant was feeling very itchy in the rear and wanted nothing more than a good scratch.

The video, filmed at Kruger National Park in South Africa, shows the lone elephant at a remote watering hole. After enjoying a drink of water and cooling down by splashing mud on himself, he casually steps backwards, leaning his butt against the tree trunk and lifting his hind leg for a more satisfactory scratch.

During a recent safari in the Kruger National Park we came across one huge lone elephant bull at a remote watering hole. We stopped to observe this giant enjoying a drink of water and cooling down by splashing mud all over himself. All alone the bull elephant casually took his time pampering himself and then slowly moved towards a tree right in front of our safari vehicle. He stood there for a short while cleaning his tusks with his trunk and then slowly stepped backwards to get his bum against the tree. Slowly the male elephant moved his bum from the one side to the other for a good scratch. In that position he could clearly only reach certain parts of his itchy bum. The most entertaining part was when the bull then unexpectedly lifted his hind leg like a dog wanting to mark its tree and continued to scratch. With one leg in the air it was clear that this bull elephant managed to get a much more improved and satisfactory bum scratch. While they scratch off the dry mud from their bodies, elephants manage to remove majority of itchy pieces and in the process they also work free parasites entombed in the dry mud. After a satisfactory bum scratch the old bull slowly wondered off back into the bush.