A hungry elephant stopped passing cars and grabbed durian from the back of a pickup truck.

The jumbo emerged from the forest and blocked traffic before searching vehicles for food in Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand.

Footage shows the elephant feasting on the fruit stored in the driver's cargo bed.

The animal ignored park rangers who were attempting to scare it away with firecrackers on February 5.

Driver Sirirat Tanthrap said: 'The elephant ate as much as it could before taking some more to bring back to the forest.'

The jumbo eventually left after three firecrackers had been thrown behind it.

The elephant brought two pieces of durian wrapped in its trunk as it went back to 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.

The main threats to wild elephants in Thailand are habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and conflict with humans.