Fact Check: Mahabubnagar woman did not give birth to baby elephant, viral claims are false
Social Media users are sharing an image of a baby elephant. Users claim a woman has given birth to a baby elephant near Munimoksham in Hanwada Mandal of Mahabubnagar district.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 26 Nov 2021 4:00 AM GMT
Hyderabad: Social Media users are sharing an image of a baby elephant. Users claim a woman has given birth to a baby elephant near Munimoksham in Hanwada Mandal of Mahabubnagar district.
The photo is being shared along with a Telugu caption. "A woman has given birth to a baby elephant near Munimoksham in Hanwada Mandal of Mahabubnagar district," reads the English translation of the message.
Fact Check:
The claim is false.
NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found the same photo available on the Internet since 2009. Some say it is the smallest elephant in the world and some say it is one month old.
https://tineye.com/search/
'SNOPES' had written a fact check article claiming that the photo was of a dead fetus. Dead elephant fetus was taken from an aborted or, presumably removed from a deceased mother elephant. But we did not get the original source of the photo. However, this photo may be old, if not recently taken.
Elephants carry fetuses for 22 months, the longest gestation period for any mammals. When the mother gives birth, the elephant calf weighs about 110 kg. If it really was a newborn calf as shown in the photo, it would not have been born so small. However, giving birth to an elephant for a human being is not a feasible task by current medical science. There were no reports of such incidents.
https://www.bbc.com/news/
The team didn't find any credible news reports or local news reports that a woman recently gave birth to an elephant near Munimoksham in the Hanwada zone of Mahabubnagar district.
Hence, the claim is false.
