A herd of elephants blocked a road in the middle of the night, causing locals to stop in their tracks.

Passing travellers spotted a family of wild elephants in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, on March 26.

The onlookers recalled that when they saw the animals, they decided to stop their car at a safe distance and briefly watched them cross the motorway.

Footage shows three juvenile elephants playing together with their two older siblings. Meanwhile, their mother stood by the roadside, keeping a close watch over her little ones.

Moments later, the creatures walked off the road and into the forest.

The filmer said: 'We crossed the road once they were all gone and it was safe to proceed.'

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.