Wild water buffalo

The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee), also called Asian buffalo, Asiatic buffalo and wild buffalo, is a large bovine native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It was first described in 1792.

The wild water buffalo is the most likely ancestor of the domestic water buffalo. It has been listed as Endangered in the IUCN Red List since 1986, as the global population totals less than 4,000 mature individuals.

Bos arnee was the scientific name proposed by Robert Kerr in 1792 who described a skull with horns of a buffalo zoological specimen from Bengal in northern India. Bubalus arnee was proposed by Charles Hamilton Smith in 1827 who introduced the generic name Bubalus for bovids with large heads, convex-shaped narrow foreheads, laterally bent flat horns, funnel-shaped ears, small dewlaps and slender tails. Later authors subordinated the wild water buffalo under either Bos, Bubalus or Buffelus.

In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature placed Bubalus arnee on the Official List of Specific Names in Zoology, recognizing the validity of this name for a wild species. Most authors have adopted the binomen Bubalus arnee for the wild water buffalo as valid for the taxon.

The wild water buffalo is the most likely ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.

Only a few DNA sequences are available from wild water buffalo populations. Wild populations are considered to be the progenitor of the modern domestic water buffalo, but the genetic variation within the species is unclear, and also how it is related to the domesticated river and Carabao swamp buffaloes.

The specific name arnee is derived from Hindi arnī, which referred to a female wild water buffalo; the term is related to Sanskrit áraṇya ("forest") and áraṇa ("strange, foreign.")

The wild water buffalo has an ash-gray to black skin. The moderately long, coarse and sparse hair is directed forward from the haunches to the long and narrow head. There is a tuft on the forehead, and the ears are comparatively small. Its head-to-body-length is 240 to 300 cm (94 to 118 in) with a 60 to 100 cm (24 to 39 in) long tail and a shoulder height of 150 to 190 cm (59 to 75 in). Both sexes carry horns that are heavy at the base and widely spreading up to 2 m (6 ft 7 in) along the outer edges, exceeding in size the horns of any other living bovid. The tip of the tail is bushy; the hooves are large and splayed. It is larger and heavier than the domestic water buffalo, and weighs from 600 to 1,200 kg (1,300 to 2,600 lb). The average weight of three captive wild water buffaloes was 900 kg (2,000 lb). It is among the heaviest living wild bovid species, and is slightly smaller than gaur.