Water Buffalo, Asian (Bubalus bubalis)

Water buffalo
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The water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) or domestic Asian water buffalo is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, North America, South America and some African countries.[1] The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.[2]

Two extant types of domestic water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east.[1][3] The origins of the domestic water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river type may have originated in India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago.[4] Water buffalo were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas.[5] The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffalo

Water buffalo

Conservation status: Feral
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Bovidae
Subfamily: Bovinae
Genus: Bubalus
Species: B. bubalis
Binomial name
Bubalus bubalis
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms
Bos bubalis Linnaeus, 1758

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