Description

The Wild Water Buffalo (Bubalus arnee) is among the largest living bovids, embodying sheer power and grace in equal measure. Adults can reach 1.8–2.0 meters in shoulder height, stretch nearly 3 meters in body length, and weigh between 700–1,200 kilograms. Their defining feature—the massive, crescent-shaped horns—can span up to 2 meters from tip to tip, curving elegantly backward. Their hides are dark gray to slate black, often caked in mud for protection against parasites and heat.

These great herbivores thrive in lowland floodplains, swamps, and grasslands, relying on daily wallowing to regulate body temperature. Once widespread from India to Indochina, wild herds are now restricted to fragmented populations in Assam, Nepal, and Cambodia. Despite centuries of interbreeding with domestic buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis), pure wild individuals still survive, representing an unbroken lineage stretching back to the late Pleistocene. As key grazers, they help maintain wetland ecosystems by opening up dense vegetation and shaping habitats used by countless other species.

The Wild Water Buffalo also occupies a deep evolutionary niche—it is the progenitor of domesticated buffaloes that revolutionized human agriculture across Asia. Their genetic resilience, adaptability, and sheer strength made them indispensable to human societies, even as their own wild kind declined under the weight of human expansion.