History of... Water Buffalo

Name:
Water Buffalo

Scientific Name:
Bubalus bubalis

Family:
Bovidae

Conservation Status:
Endangered

Habitation:
Water buffalo prefer wet grasslands, marshes, swamps, and floodplains, especially in tropical and subtropical regions of Asia. 

It is thought that water buffalo originated in western India and were domesticated around 6,300 years ago and the swamp buffalo originated in mainland south east Asia and were domesticated about 3,000 to 7,000 years ago.

There are around 160 million domesticated water buffalo around the world, but there are estimated to be only 4 thousand wild water buffalo left in the world.

The skin of a river buffalo is usually black but some have a dark grey coloured skin.
When they are born they have grey skin at birth, which usually changes black as they mature. Some do remain darker shades of the grey.

Buffaloes are heavy-bodied and stockily built, with a short body and large belly. The forehead is flat, the eyes are prominent, the face is short. Their horns grow outward and curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks.

They can hold their breath and remain under water for up to five minutes at a time.

Diet:
Water buffaloes eat many aquatic plants. During floods, they graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. In some tropical valleys buffaloes may help control invasive aquatic plants.

Reproduction:
Water buffaloes usually mature at around three years.
A good river buffalo male can impregnate 100 females in a year. Gestation lasts between 281 to 334 days. Swamp buffaloes carry their calves for one or two weeks longer than river buffaloes.

Domestication:
Most buffaloes are kept by people who work on small farms in family units. They are the ideal animals for work in the deep mud of paddy fields because of their large hooves and flexible foot joints.

They are sometimes called "the living tractor of the East". They are an efficient and economical means of cultivation of small fields. In many rice-producing countries, they are used for threshing and for transporting the sheaves during the rice harvest.

They provide power for oilseed mills, sugarcane presses, and devices for raising water. They are widely used as pack animals, and in India and Pakistan, for heavy haulage, also.

Their dung is used as a fertilizer, and as a fuel when dried