Elephants drink using their trunk - drawing a few litres into the lower end of their elongated nostrils/upper lip, closing the end with the muscular tip and using the trunk as a drinking vessel to lift the water to their mouth. They don't suck it up like a drinking straw - it would make them sneeze if it got into the nasal cavities just as it does when we get water up our nose. This mother elephant is drinking for two - simultaneously quenching her thirst while suckling her baby. He seems at first to be investigating her breast with his trunk tip, but at his age he has not yet mastered control of the 100,000 muscle units that make up his all-round flexible nose-arm. When he begins to feed properly, you'll see him lift his little trunk against his mother's flank and latch on with the mouth.
People who have heard cattle terms used for #elephants are surprised to learn that female elephants do not have an udder like a cow, between the back legs, but a pair of mammaries between the fore-legs, each with a nipple, not teats. That is one reason I avoid calling them cows and calves - another is that with a brain four times the size of a human's, they are elephant beings who demonstrate self-awareness and cultural knowledge, not overgrown cattle! The process of weaning is usually complete by around 5 years, with adolescents being emotionally dependent on their mother until puberty at 8-13 years. This extended childhood gives the next generation the opportunity to learn where to find food and water, how to avoid danger and to build social relations that will last a lifetime - which for an elephant is up to 70 years in the wild.
This family herd, drinking at sundown in the Chobe National Park, Botswana​, form the 70th #BrightenYourDay video to lift spirits in #Covid19 #lockdown, and offer an opportunity to contemplate the life-cycle of a very different species that in so many ways mirrors our own.