by An Indian elephant was caught on camera when it did the strange act of suddenly ʙᴀɴɢɪɴɢ ɪᴛs ʜᴇᴀᴅ on the ground while walking on the road. This is the bizarre moment an Indian elephant appears to take a sudden nosedive while walking along the side of a road. The female elephant was filmed in the Jim Corbett National Park in Uttrakhand State as it ᴛʀᴏᴛᴛᴇᴅ along behind a safari vehicle. Suddenly it veered off the track and pushed its head and trunk into a grass verge, even lifting one leg off the ground as it pressed into the damp earth.
In the photo, the elephant suddenly turned to the road and butted his nose close to the grass, lifting one leg off the ground. At the time, photographer Arpit Cuba captured the elephant’s unusual behavior. He then asked his guides why the elephant did this. In fact, the clever female was rubbing herself on the morning dew and then in the dust to create a barrier ᴀɢᴀɪɴsᴛ annoying ᴘᴀʀᴀsɪᴛᴇs.
The guides then explained to him that the elephant was resting his head on the morning dew-covered grass to soothe the ɪᴛᴄʜ and mixed it with soil to remove ᴘᴀʀᴀsɪᴛᴇs and other things from its skin. He added that elephants deal with ᴘᴀʀᴀsɪᴛᴇs this way because their foreheads and noses are sensitive and they don’t like rubbing ᴀɢᴀɪɴsᴛ hard objects.
In response, the artist said that it was surprising to see an animal like this elephant find a cure in the ᴡɪʟᴅ. Mr Kubba said he had been following a group of four elephants including two females and two calves. Mr Kubba used a Canon 1DX Mark II with a Canon 300mm lens to take his still images of the elephant from around 500 yards.
Arpit Cuba said: “This female elephant was coming head-on towards us normally and all of a sudden she went down, and we all were like, “What just happened?”. The guides explained elephants use the morning dew to ᴛʀᴇᴀᴛ themselves for fly ʙɪᴛᴇs and parasite infection which are ɪᴛᴄʜʏ for them. They mix the dew and the soil and apply it for ʀᴇʟɪᴇꜰ. It’s an elephant way to ᴛʀᴇᴀᴛ themselves to a facial because the forehead and trunk are very sensitive, and they don’t want to rub it on anything solid. It was just out of this world to see such behaviour of how these animals use the environment to medicate themselves naturally.”
