Description

Bubalus murrensis — Also called the European Water Buffalo, this extinct species lived throughout Europe during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, thriving during interglacial periods when the continent’s climate was warm and humid. Fossils have been found in Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Romania, and western Russia, often near river systems and floodplains.

It was a large, semi-aquatic bovine, similar in appearance to the modern Asiatic water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), but with longer, backward-curving horns that projected over the back of its skull. Estimated at ~1.8 m tall at the shoulder, 2.8–3 m long, and weighing 1,000–1,200 kg, it was among Europe’s largest bovines.

B. murrensis preferred wet, marshy lowlands, feeding on sedges and aquatic plants. It was poorly adapted to cold glacial environments, retreating southward during ice advances and recolonizing the north when climates warmed. The youngest known specimen, found in Lukerino, Russia, was radiocarbon dated to around 12,800 years BP, showing it survived into the terminal Pleistocene.