African 'white elephant' covers himself in mud to keep cool

This is the moment a Namibian amateur photographer captured a 'white elephant' in the Etosha national park.

But the animal hasn't been painted using white emulsion. Photographer Schalk van der Merwe explained that it became white after using mud to "cool off".

An African elephant covers itself in mud to keep cool in the Etosha national park

The elephant, flanked by zebras, drinks over a waterhole and uses mud to stay cool in the hot African sun.

Once the mud dries, the elephant's skin is covered in dry white calcite sand and clay in the appropriately named park: Etosha which means 'Great White Place'.