Water Buffalo

The water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis, also called the domestic water buffalo or Asian water buffalo, is a large domesticated bovine that originated in South and Southeast Asia and descends from the wild water buffalo. Today it is also kept in Italy, the Balkans, Australia, the Americas and parts of Africa. Two extant types are recognised on morphological and behavioural criteria: the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent, extending west to the Balkans, Egypt and Italy, and the swamp buffalo from Assam through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze Valley of China. The wild water buffalo, Bubalus arnee, is most probably the ancestor of the domestic animal. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that the river-type buffalo and the swamp-type buffalo originated independently, the river type probably in western India and domesticated about 6,300 years ago.