Photo of elephant carrying lion cub to water. Fact Check

A photo appears to show an elephant carrying an exhausted young lion cub in its trunk to water, accompanied by the cub’s mother.

FALSE

The below photo is spreading with the caption that the elephant saw the struggling cub and carried it to a pool of water, as per the example below.

It was considered the best photo of this century. A lioness and her cub were crossing the savannah but the heat was excessive and the puppy was in great difficulty walking. An elephant realized that his cub would die and carried him in his trunk to a pool of water walking beside his mother. And we call them wild animals.

A sweet tale, certainly. But not real. The photo, upon a closer examination, is clearly fake, and is made up from 3 separate photos.

The photo of the elephant is real, but both the adult lioness and the lion cub have been digitally added to the photo, and the story created. The original photos of the two lions can be seen below in their original form.

As such, the photo is fake.