The REAL Mowgli little girl who spent the first ten years of her life in the African bush

Heart-warming pictures of the real life Mowgli, a girl who spent the first ten years of her life growing up in the African bush, have been released for the first time.

The magical images chronicle the life of Tippi Benjamine Okanti Degre, who was brought up with wild animals, just like Rudyard Kipling’s hero did in The Jungle Book.

The images in ‘Tippi: My Book of Africa’ - now being published worldwide for the first time - show the young girl making friends with an elephant, who she calls her brother, and a leopard, her best friend.

Living with her French parents, wildlife photographers Sylvie Robert and Alain Degre, the three of them travelled extensively through Africa on a unique and incredible trip.

The adventure started where Tippi was born in Namibia, and ended in her travelling through countries like Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

‘Her everyday life was making sure monkeys did not steal her bottle,’ said Sylvie.

‘Or she would call me over and point to an elephant eating from a palm tree and say ‘mummy, be quiet, we’re going to frighten him.’ ‘She had so much freedom.

‘It was like having the biggest playground. We lived in a tent, completely i n the wild, but she always woke up with the sun shining and her parents around her. She was very lucky.’ And the incredible photos - from sitting on the back of an ostrich, lying peacefully with a young caracal, or dancing playfully with an elephant - show an unusual bond and tranquility between man and beast.

‘She was so at ease with animals. She would talk to them with her eyes and her heart,’ said Sylvie. Using her innocence and imagination, the young ‘Mowgli’ befriended one of the giants of the animal kingdom, Abu the African elephant. ‘She had no fear,’ said Sylvie. ‘She did not realise she was not the same size as Abu the elephant. She would just speak to him like she would speak to me. They used to call her ‘the little girl who would talk with animals.’

IT WAS LIKE HAVING THE BIGGEST PLAYGROUND. WE LIVED IN A TENT

Tippi aged 6 South Africa, sitting on the back of Linda, a tamed ostrich in two meerkats left, and cradling Tippi riding on Abu’s neck as his herd in Okavango he leads Botswana Swamps, ostrich in HOpOn: for a ride on Linda, a tamed South...