{"id":704161,"date":"2026-07-21T22:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/704161\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T22:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:48:24","slug":"move-over-world-cup-tula-the-elephant-is-stealing-the-show-with-a-bigger-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/704161\/","title":{"rendered":"Move Over, World Cup\u2014Tula the Elephant Is Stealing the Show With a Bigger Ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Cup fans, we have a solution to the emptiness you feel now that the games are over. Tula-Tu<\/a>, the elephant, loves to play ball, and she’s pretty good, too. Her moves don’t necessarily involve kicking balls into goals. Instead, she mostly likes to roll around on her giant plaything and sometimes bat it with her trunk.<\/p>\n

This clip shows off all her tricks along with that happy elephant smile. “Tula got a bigger ball,” the caption explains her joy. At 1,300 pounds, her old ball<\/a> (a gift for her first birthday from Portland Fire and Rescue) was just a little too small for the girl. At the end, Tula links trunks with her mom as part of her game.<\/p>\n

Tula’s dedicated fan base on TikTok obviously loved this one. Viewers gushed over how much Tula has grown, like @firstnamemelody with, “She’s so big.” And yet they love that she still looks like a little baby.<\/p>\n

“She is such an adorable goof!” @TheSpindleSprite summed it up perfectly. Her adorableness is unmatched. @PurplePug understood what we were all thinking, “It’s so unfair that I don’t have a baby elephant<\/a>!” Seriously, where do we get one?<\/p>\n

The most love came when the baby and mama elephant were holding trunks. “Yeah, I can’t really handle the trunks intertwining without crying for some reason,” @Elizabeth Pepper admitted. No one can!<\/p>\n

Related: Baby Elephant Playing ‘Soccer’ With Pumpkin at Oregon Zoo Just Won the Internet<\/a><\/p>\n

Why Elephants Love Playing With Balls<\/p>\n

It’s not just soccer players who enjoy playing sports; elephants<\/a> love toys. Play represents an important part of development for human children and many other species. Elephants, in particular, need to master certain skills that rolling a ball around encourages, such as their trunk coordination that we see in the clip.<\/p>\n

Scientific American<\/a> explains why it’s crucial: “It turns out that play, like other forms of interaction, has rules of engagement. And it is essential for developing the physical and cognitive faculties that animals need to survive and reproduce.”<\/p>\n

In Tula’s case, she’s learning the deal with “elephanting” and just awaiting her chance to try out for the women’s team in a few years!<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc36<\/a>SIGN UP to get “pawsitivity” delivered right to your inbox with inspiring & entertaining stories about our furry & feathered friends<\/a>\ud83d\udc3e\ud83d\udc3e<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by PetHelpful<\/a> on Jul 20, 2026, where it first appeared in the Pet News<\/a> section. Add PetHelpful as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World Cup fans, we have a solution to the emptiness you feel now that the games are over.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[4415,90,233608,56,54,55,4407,233607],"class_list":["post-704161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-elephant","tag-science","tag-tula","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife","tag-world-cup-fans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}