These heart-warming pictures show Jicho the lioness helping her two cubs across a stream to escape a life-threatening buffalo stampede.
For those who remember Mufasa’s death in The Lion King, these youngsters manage to avoid the same fate – with help from their mother.
After seeing the herd, Jicho leaps across the stream onto the safety of an island but neither of her cubs had enough strength to climb out of the water.
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Help us, mum! Heart-warming pictures show Jicho the lioness helping her two cubs across a stream to escape a buffalo stampede
Helping hand: The youngsters managed to avoid the same fate as Mufasa from The Lion King, who was killed by a herd of wildebeest
After seeing the herd, Jicho leaps across the stream onto the safety of an island but neither of her cubs had enough strength to climb out
Don’t leave me behind! Jicho reaches down her to help cub who struggles to climb up the slippery mud bank in the Masai Mara region of Kenya
Safe and sound! The cubs get a cuddle – and a much-needed clean – from mum after making it across the river
At one point, their situation looked bleak, with the two cubs struggling to gain any foothold on the embankment as the buffalo herd fast approached.
Jicho had to growl encouragement to her crying young and eventually, after she leaned down to help them up, the cubs made their way to safety.
The escape was brilliantly captured by photography couple Laurent Renaud and Dominique Haution in the Masai Mara region in Kenya.
In the hit film The Lion King, Mufasa dies while saving his son Simba from a stampede of wildebeest.
After rescuing Simba from a branch, Mufasa is injured by one of the wildebeest but manages to reach a ledge to get his son to safety.
Mufasa is then carried off by the herd but jumps up onto another ledge, where is met by Scar who throws him to his death into the stampede.
The escape was brilliantly captured by photography couple Laurent Renaud and Dominique Haution in the Masai Mara region in Kenya
Tentative steps: The first cub enters the water to make its way across the stream to an island where its mother had gone
Roars for thought: The second cub growls in frustration after struggling to muster the courage to cross the stream to its mother on the side
