It was difficult to find exact information about these animals because another kept getting mixed in with the searches. Only members of the African genera of Syncerus and the Asian genera of Bubalus are considered true buffalo. American Buffalo or BISON are actually the genera of Bovina. We’ll get to that one another day, but we’re working with the true buffalos this time.
I’ll get right into the conservation status before doing a fact list since the information was all over the place. As I said, bison kept getting included, so I had trouble getting a clear picture. From what I could see, most of the species are listed as ‘least concerned’ and not at risk out extinction. Some have minor threats due to crossbreeding with domestic cows and other related species. Yet, they have not lost enough numbers to put them in the endangered category. The possible exception is the wild water buffalo, which I read a few times is hitting endangered levels.
So, what are some facts?
- The Cape Buffalo is consider one of the ‘Big Five’ animals of Africa, which was a hunting term depicting the most difficult animals to catch. The others are lion, leopard, rhino, and elephant.
- Water buffalo can grow to 8-9 feet long and 1,500-2,600 pounds. African buffalos are smaller, but still big.
- Water buffalo have wide hooves to prevent them from sinking into the mud at the bottom of the ponds and lakes they swim in.
- African buffalo do not swim as much as water buffalo, but they never stray further than 12 miles away from a water source.
- Water buffalo herds are separated by gender while African buffalos have mixed gender herds. The former has female herds of up to 30 with calves while male herds stay around 10 members. The latter can have male-only herds, but those consist of older animals.
- African buffalo vote to see where the herd goes. When it is time to move, they stand and turn in the direction they want to go. The direction with the most votes wins and the female leader will head that way.
- Buffalos have smooth tongues.
- African buffalos have a memory that is second only to the elephant. They also have a reputation for vengeance. Injured buffalo have ambushed the hunters who have attacked them in the past. They return to their tracks and wait for the hunters to come back. African buffalo have even attacked young lions from prides that have attacked and killed members of their herd.
- African buffalos kill more humans than any other animal.
Let’s get the pictures and videos. (The first five are the genera of Bubalus and the last two are Syncerus.)
Asian Water Buffalo
Wild Water Buffalo
Tamaraw
Mountain Anoa
Lowland Anoa
Cape Buffalo
Forest Buffalo
BATTLE AT KRUGER! This is actually a rather infamous video that involves a buffalo calf and a real back-and-forth scene. In fact, this is a considered a very rare event of nature. It can be rough to watch even though it’s not bloody. I won’t give spoilers though.
Legends of Windemere 
They all look fearsome and not an animal I would approach, although there seem to be too many visitors to Yellowstone this year who consider the bison to be pets – with disastrous results. My daughter once tried to convince us there was a related animal called the Texas Yak.
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Seems Texas Yaks is a yak farm, so she’s not wrong. Yaks are actually closely related to American bison. The buffalo in the post are actually a different category of bovine, but bison get mixed in because they’re also called buffalo.
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Thanks, Charles. She will be very happy to hear this, since we’ve been teasing her about it for years! And we are finally straightened out on the bison/buffaloe situation!
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Happy to help. 😁
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Sooperb 💕
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Thanks.
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Always 🤗
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That’s interesting, about the African buffalos that will track down people/animals who have hurt them.
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Vengeance isn’t just for humans.
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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Thanks for sharing.
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My pleasure, Charles, I saw Asian Buffaloes in Thailand and Myanmar (Burma), they’re quite dangerous and have been known to attack people 🤔
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Cool and nerve wracking.
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Yep 😃
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Great post, Charles. The pictures, facts, and videos were terrific. Thanks.
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Glad you enjoyed it.
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😊
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Interesting facts. I didn’t know about some of those things involving African water buffaloes. Random fact: the Swahili word for buffalo is “nyati”.
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Cool. Thanks for random fact.
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No problem. It has also been interesting reading about some conservation efforts like an app being created in Kenya to identify and track threatened or endangered animals in regards to finding out inventions in the Silicon Savannah.
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I think I saw a little on that when I was doing a post on rhinos. Good to see technology used for good.
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Nice! Was it the Makenya app or something else? It’s cool when you see helpful technology being created and used. However, these inventions don’t get enough attention from the wider public.
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I didn’t look that far into it. My focus was on natural facts, so I only skirted the rabbit hole.
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That’s fine and I get it. Your animal articles have certainly been informative. I recently told a couple people about that app for example and one person legitimately thought Kenya, let alone most of Africa didn’t have technology invented there and thought it was just jungles and safaris despite multiple modern cities being there. I was able to open up their eyes that there was a ton more than what they were shown.
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I’ve met those types. Also people who think Wakanda is real and wonders why they didn’t stop slavery. I just back away from that.
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Okay, the person didn’t go that far, but she legitimately didn’t know and wanted more inventions from that part of the world to be focused on. However, I have met some actual idiots who assume it’s all poverty, war zones, and safari tours, let alone think it’s a country and not a continent. I still can’t believe some people exist that think Wakanda is real. Fun fact: There’s a town called Wauconda in Illinois and it’s pronounced just like Black Panther’s homeland.
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I kind of get how some people think of Africa as a country here. We talk about it as if it’s one large country just like Australia. We don’t do that with Europe, Asia, and South America.
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You can blame it on our geography classes. I’m glad I’m not the only person who notices that when it comes to other continents. There are dozens of countries on the mainland and some island nations, but most people can’t name them except for maybe South Africa, Kenya, or maybe Egypt if they realize it’s actually in Africa.
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I’ve sat in a few high school geography classes. They touch on more areas than they used, but mostly in the north. I think part of it is that geography is connected to historical events because of limited time for the curriculum. Not a lot of history is done in regards to Africa.
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Is that so? I’m not surprised that they would still focus on the Northern Hemisphere. There is a ton of history in Africa, but it rarely ever gets focused on unless it’s animals.
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It’s really just the curriculum. It doesn’t get updated much unless the school has a larger population of a group that isn’t typically included. Even then, they can’t stray far due to standardized tests.
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That does make sense even if I don’t agree with the curriculum and rampant testing. In hindsight, I think I learned more about geography from Carmen Sandiego than I did most of my teachers from elementary school all the way to university and that’s not counting the times I learned about world cultures for fun when I read various books or memorized flags by myself.
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That game series educated a lot of kids. Elementary school tends to focus on the US while 6th grade begins moving beyond our borders. I totally agree with the crazy amount of testing.
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I played some of the games, but I was a huge fan of the game show when I was little. I’m talking about the one that was on PBS back in the day and had Rockapella as the in-house band/sound effects people. Testing is okay, but shouldn’t he overdone or the only thing the educational powers focus on. Glad you agree with that.
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I remember that one. Still have the song in my head from time to time.
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Awesome. That theme song still slaps to this day and it’s one of my favorite all-time theme songs.
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Very cool creatures. Thanks for sharing them.
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You’re welcome.
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Reblogged this on NEW BLOG HERE >> https:/BOOKS.ESLARN-NET.DE.
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Thanks for sharing.
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Aren’t they wonderful? I never thought the Anoa’s are part of the family. Great information! Thanks for your efforts on collecting all these great news, Charles! Have a beautiful week! xx Michael
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Glad you enjoyed it.
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Charles, this is so interesting. I love your animal posts. Thank you.
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Happy to entertain.
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🙂
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