Mother Elephant Crushes Crocodile To Death To Protect Calf In Viral Video [Watch]

A video of a crocodile getting crushed to death by a huge African elephant in Zambia after it stalked her calf has gone viral on social media.

The rare sighting of the protective mother elephant attacking the crocodile was filmed by Hans Haahr from Denmark, while he was on a safari in Zambia. The video shared by Latest Sightings received more than 456,416 views since it was posted on YouTube on Tuesday.

"Crocodiles are opportunistic hunters and have been known to prey on baby elephants. This mother elephant was not taking any chances and was not happy with the crocodile being so close to her young calf –to protect her calf, she removed the threat of the crocodile entirely," Latest Sightings captioned the video.

The video showed the lactating mother elephant relentlessly attacking the crocodile in shallow water. The angry mother elephant can be seen stamping the crocodile and flipping it. The elephant then wraps her trunk around the crocodile's tail before tossing the animal, which seems to be around eight to ten feet long.

Despite having no tusks, she uses her weight to crush the crocodile to make sure it is dead.

Haahr said “shocking!” was how he could best describe the encounter, The South African reported. The video also received several comments from viewers across the world, who were fascinated by the rare encounter.

"As herbivores, elephants may not have much of an instinct to kill other species. But this elephant sure seems to understand what 'make dead' means," a viewer commented.

"Mama was very, very angry! Never mess with a mom who protects her family! AND no animal can beat an African Elephant alone," another said.

"Elephant: 'I had told u not to come near my little one... It's time I knock some sense into you," another added.

The African elephants, though known for their huge size, are generally considered peaceful. However, females can get aggressive when they are around their calves. An average African elephant weighs somewhere between 5,000 to 14,000 lbs (2,268 to 6,350 kilograms) and grows up to 8.2 to 13 feet (2.5 to 4 meters) in height.