Description

Bubalus mephistopheles — Known as the Short-Horned Water Buffalo, this extinct bovid lived throughout the wetlands, river plains, and grasslands of Pleistocene to early Holocene China. It was closely related to the modern Asiatic water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) but differed in having shorter, more triangular horns that curved sharply inward and forward. Adults weighed an estimated 600–1,000 kg, stood about 1.6 m tall at the shoulder, and reached roughly 2.7 m in body length.

Fossil and archaeological evidence places B. mephistopheles across a wide range of Chinese provinces—from Henan and Shandong to Yunnan—with remains dated as recently as 1200 BC. It is thought to have been a marshland grazer, feeding on grasses and aquatic vegetation in the lowlands and floodplains of East Asia.

Its extinction likely resulted from a combination of climatic drying, habitat loss, and human exploitation, coinciding with the expansion of agriculture and water management systems during the Neolithic and Bronze Age.