Drunk and disorderly elephants

A herd of drunken elephants has been spotted wandering through South Africa’s Singita Kruger National Park – resulting in some hilarious photos being captured.

Ross Couper, a guide at the park, managed to get some superb images of the tipsy young elephants, who stumbled through the bush after consuming excessive quantities of the native marula fruit.

The marula fruit can have an intoxicating effect – even when it comes to large mammals – when eaten in excess.

This year has seen an abundance of the ripened and fermenting fruit falling to the ground, and it seems that the juvenile herd just couldn’t get enough of the irresistible treat.

The older – and wiser – elephants, which can consume up to 30kg (approximately 714 marula fruit) in one day, were teaching the youngsters in the herd what to eat – but it seems that there were no guidelines about quantity.

After over-indulging the youths began to display some rather strange behaviour, stumbling around and losing their footing, looking, for all intents and purposes, like drunken fools.