>> Last month, seven models made the trek to a luxury elephant camp in the Okavango Delta of Botswana to shoot the 2009 Pirelli calendar.

Mariacarla Boscono, Malgosia Bela, Daria Werbowy, Lara Stone, Emanuela De Paula, and Isabeli Fontana mucked around in the mud, waded in the marsh, and climbed trees, sporting little but a square of leather here, a string of beads there, while Peter Beard documented the whole thing.

The calendar won't come out until later this year, but until then, a look at the behind-the-scenes shots and retro photographs that will be interspersed between (NSFW).
*images: source