BUBALUS BUBALIS, the WATER BUFFALO 8.1 the Living Animal
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CHAPTER EIGHT BUBALUS BUBALIS, THE WATER BUFFALO 8.1 The Living Animal 8.1.1 Zoology The wild water buffalo or Asian buffalo is a large and robust bovid with a shoulder height of 1.5–1.9 m; it is the only bovid which is closely associated with water (fi g. 115). The pair of horns, borne by both sexes, is impressive and resembles a crescent moon in frontal view. The spread of the horns exceeds that of any other living bovid: they may measure up to two metres along the outer edge. The horns are heavy at the base, triangular in cross-section—not oval as in Bos—and are conspicuously marked with ridges. Seen from above, the muzzle is laterally compressed in the middle, much more than is present in other cattle. The ears are large and pendulous. The hooves are large and widely splayed as an adaptation to walk on soft and muddy substrates. The buffalo’s body is covered with moderately long, coarse and sparse hair of a black or intense dark brown colour; the lower part of the legs may be whitish. The tail ends in a bushy tip. Domestic water buffaloes are considerably smaller and less robust: whereas the wild animals have a weight between 700 and 1,200 kg, the domestic buffaloes weigh less than half, ranging between 250 and 550 kg. The domestic buffalo differs little from the wild buffalo in other respects, except for its much smaller horns and less aggressive and more docile behaviour. The horn shape varies between the domestic breeds. In some breeds, they are very small and strongly curved, practically touching the head with the tips (fi g. 116), while in others they are long and sweep backwards (fi g. 117). The water buffalo wallows in mud a great part of the day as a means of protection against irritating swarms of insects. The mud dries and forms a thick layer of cake through which insects cannot penetrate. Sometimes the buffaloes submerge completely, with only their nostrils exposed. The wild water buffalo lives in herds of ten to twenty individuals. 120 BUBALUS BUBALIS Wild water buffaloes are the boldest and most savage of the Indian bovids. Especially bulls and cows with calf may attack seemingly without provocation and kill humans. Water buffaloes, wild as well as domestic, may even face a tiger, which is their only enemy apart from humans, and in many such cases the tiger loses. Wild buffaloes are no welcome guests to villages as they damage crops and not infrequently wild bulls kill a domestic bull in order to breed with the cows. The resulting calves are less docile, too large to fi t the agricultural implements, and often too large to be born without obstetrical problems. In South Asia, the wild water buffalo originally lived in the tropical to subtropical riverine forests, wet grasslands, marshes and swamps from southern Nepal to Central India and Sri Lanka. Nowadays, truly wild populations are restricted to the marshy grass- and reedlands of Assam and Orissa, the Bastar forests of Chhatisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, and the grass jungles (terai) of Nepal. Their number has dropped drastically to a mere 3,500 in India.1 The species is at present endangered, due to habitat loss, hunting, interbreeding with domestic and feral buffaloes, competition for food and water with domestic buffalo, and infections with pathogens from domestic populations.2 8.1.2 Role of Buffaloes in Society 8.1.2.1 The Use and Domestication of Buffaloes Domestic water buffaloes are mainly used as draught animals to pull carts and ploughs. They are strong but not fast. Without water buffaloes, rice cultivation would be considerably more laborious. In addition, they are used for their highly nutritious milk and their meat, but not their dung. Wild buffaloes are hunted only for their meat. Evidence for the use of the water buffalo is found in association with human settlements from the time of the Indus Valley civilization onwards, roughly 4,300 years ago. In Gujarat, remains have been excavated at Lothal3 from Mature Harappan levels and at Rangpur4 from post-Harappan levels. Its most western frontier may have been 1 A. Choudhury, “The decline of the wild water buffalo in northeast India,” Oryx 28 (1994), 70. 2 S. Hedges, Bubalus bubalis, in 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 3 Nath, op. cit. (1968), 1–63; Chitalwala and Thomas, op. cit. (1977–8), 14. 4 B. Nath, “Animal remains from Rangpur,” Ancient India 18–19 (1963), 153–160..