Sensational elephant womb pics 
20 months ... elephant looks ready
A BABY elephant peers sleepily from under an eyelid — in a close-up snap of the incredible creature floating peacefully INSIDE the womb.
It is one of a sensational series of images created by a team of experts to show for the first time how unborn animals develop.
The elephant foetus looks perfectly formed and ready to be born — but still has two months left in the belly of its mother.
Others stunning pictures show a dolphin foetus SWIMMING in the womb and a golden retriever with a full coat of light cream fur and whiskers after just 52 days.
Six months ... baby's trunk and ears are clearly visible. Inset, at 16 weeks
All the embryos looked like human ones in the early stages — to the amazement of the film makers and the vets who helped them.
The images were taken from outside and inside the mums-to-be using 3D scanners and microscopic cameras — for the TV documentary Animals In The Womb.
They are similar to the “walking in the womb” images of an unborn human baby taken last year by the same production team.
Floating ... in the womb
This time experts from zoos and animal centres around the world were involved.
The mums-to-be had to be trained to stay still near the scanning equipment so the pictures could be taken.
Scans and photographs were taken from all angles — a microscopic camera was even inserted up an elephant’s bottom. Layers of tissue between the lens and the foetus were then removed from the pictures using digital imaging.
Animals In The Womb producer Jeremy Dear said: “These kind of images from inside animals have never been seen before. There were a lot of different challenges — recording a dolphin is very different from an elephant.
“Animals were trained to sit still near the scanners. We even had to insert cameras via the elephant’s rectum. But it has been worth it.”
Jeremy, of Pioneer Productions which made the film, said when the elephant calf was born there was “not a dry eye in the house”.
The crew had filmed the pregnancy for 22 months — the longest gestation period of any mammal.
They watched as the foetus started to exercise its legs and trunk at 18 weeks.
And at 12 months it was curling its trunk into its mouth and over its head.
But it was just 18in long and 26lbs — a long way from its 264lb birth weight.
Nearly fin-ished ... unborn dolphin swims around and moves its eyes.
Inset, golden retriever has coat and whiskers
The dolphin was seen curling its tail fin around its body at six weeks into the 12-month pregnancy.
At 24 days the sea creature — which is believed to have evolved from a land-dwelling ancestor — had developed leg-like buds, which gradually disappeared during the next fortnight. And at 11 weeks its fins had bone structures like human hands.
The unborn puppy is seen with its eyes sealed shut at 39 days to protect them from germs. It even PANTS in the womb — its home for nine weeks.
Jeremy said of the very early images of all the animals: “The incredible thing is how we look very similar. It’s obvious that we humans share a common mammalian ancestry very early in life.”
Animals in the Womb will be shown on the National Geographic Channel in America next month — and on the UK’s Channel 4 next year.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006540470,00.html
