Fact Check-Image of elephant carrying a lion cub was created as an April Fool’s joke

An image of an elephant walking alongside a lion, carrying a lion cub tucked under its trunk is digitally altered, and was created as an April Fool’s joke.

Dozens of social media users have shared the altered image, claiming that was “considered the best photo of this century” (here).

Other examples are viewable (here), (here), and (here).

Although some were aware the image was digitally altered, others believed it to be authentic.

One user added in the comments: “Interesting and heart touching. Even Animals sometimes do shelve their differences and antagonistic relationship to help one another, why not human?” (here)

“This is incredible…a beautiful story…animals never cease to amaze how kind..loving..they can be towards each other and other species..wish all humans would be so inclined,” one user who shared the image on Twitter said (here).

The image is not authentic, however, and was first shared by Kruger Sightings, a platform that shares videos and photographs of animals in Kruger National Park, South Africa (www.latestsightings.com/).

Kruger Sightings shared the image on its Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts on April 1, 2018 (here), (here), (here).

The original post was also signed ‘Sloof Lirpa,’ which is ‘April Fools’ spelled backwards.

The CEO of Kruger Sightings, Nadav Ossendryver, tweeted at the time, confirming that the image was a spoof (here).

Ossendryver forwarded a link to Reuters which was published on the Kruger Sightings website detailing how the image was digitally altered (here).

The unaltered image of the elephant is viewable on Wikimedia with a caption that reads: “Savanna elephant "Loxodonta africana" in Kruger National Park, South Africa” (here).

The original image of the lioness was published in a blog in 2012 (here).

Reuters has previously addressed April Fools spoofs that duped online users (here), (here).

VERDICT

Altered. An image of an elephant walking alongside a lion, carrying a cub tucked under its trunk, is not authentic. It was digitally altered as an April Fool’s prank and shared onto social media.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .