A cheeky baby elephant held up traffic - to rub its bottom on a couple's car.

The jumbo sparked panic when it emerged from the woodland onto a narrow winding road in Prachinburi province, Thailand, on July 1.

Drivers frantically backed away, but with nowhere to go, Namfhon Saowalak and her husband had to sit tight and pray the animal would pass without harming them.

However, the young elephant appeared to take a strange interest in the bonnet of their red Toyota.

Footage shows the beast wandering over and kicking the bumper before plonking its sizeable derriere on the bonnet. It then wiggled from side to side, rubbing its backside to seemingly try and satisfy an itch.

Relieved Namfhon said: 'My soul almost left my body, I was so scared. I never thought such a thing would happen to us. I couldn't stop myself from screaming.

'I was so scared I wanted to cry. I apologise for my crying being annoying in the video. I was so relieved when the elephant left.'

The couple eventually drove away from the area and the traffic jam eased when the jumbo had shuffled back into the forest.

Thailand has up to 3,500 elephants in the wild. The population has been increasing in recent years, but it is still a fraction of the estimated 300,000 wild elephants that lived in the country at the beginning of the 20th century.

With increasing urbanisation and cars on the road, there is rising conflict with humans. Conservationists even say that the elephants are so familiar with humans, they have lost most of their previous inhibitions.