Linyati River

PUBLISHED: 12:52 GMT, 26 October 2012 | UPDATED: 15:35 GMT, 26 October 2012

This is the moment a leopard grabbed her cub by the scruff of his neck to drag it out of a den where it had hid from a predator.

The cute creature poked his nose out of the hollowed-out termite mound when his mum returned from a hunting trip.

After emerging fully from the den the mischievous cub was so excited to see her that he tried to play with her.

C’mere you! The mother leopard plucks up her cheeky cub by the scruff of its neck to drag it out of its den

Hidey-hole: The cute cub had crawled into a hollowed-out termite hole to hide from predators

But, after a night out hunting, she was in no mood to play and so picked him up in her mouth and dumped him on the ground.

Wildlife photographer Grant Atkinson captured the moment on camera during a trip to the Linyati River in Botswana.

Grant, 44, said: “We were following a female leopard through some woodland and saw her move into a clearing.

‘After a while she stopped at the entrance to an old burrow in the side of a termite mound and very slowly a little cub emerged.

Little rascal: The cute creature poked his nose out of a hollowed-out termite mound when his mother returned from a hunting trip

Cheeky: The cub bats at his mother with his paw as she keeps a careful eye out for danger

Double trouble: Mother and cub bare their fangs menacingly as a warning to other animals on the Linyati River in Botswana

‘Eventually it came out. She groomed it and then moved to the back towards the mound but the cub followed her and began to play.

‘In the end she picked it up by the neck and then carried it right across the clearing.

‘She put it in a new hiding place, in an old fallen tree stump.

‘The cub finally went inside and the mother leopard lay on top of another fallen stump.’

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