From the archive record
A water buffalo coos off in a pond that is covered with water hyacinth on a scorching summer day at Kaziranga National Park in Assam. The water buffalo or domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a large bovid found on the Indian subcontinent to Vietnam and Peninsular Malaysia, in Sri Lanka, in the Philippines, and in Borneo. The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo. Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria -- the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans, Egypt and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of