Bull species. Wild bull: species and photos. Wild bulls of our time

• Order: Artiodactyla Owen, 1848 = Artiodactyls, pair-toed
• p / order: Ruminantia Scopoli, 1777 = Ruminants
• Family: Bovidae (Cavicornia) Gray, 1821 = Bovids
• Subfamily: Bovina = Bulls
• Genus:
• Species: Bos tnutus Przewalski, 1883 = Yak ; ; ; ; (4) ;

Genus: Bos Linnaeus, 1758 = True bulls

The sizes are medium to large. Body length 180-325 cm, height at the withers 130-210 cm, tail length 70-140 cm.Weight 325-1200 kg. Females are much smaller than males (for example, females reach a height at the withers of 145 cm). The body is long. The front part of the body is not particularly heavy. The back is at the withers with a slight hump. The limbs are relatively short and strong. The neck is short; there is usually a well-defined dewlap. The head is large. The eyes are relatively small. The ears are medium in size or large, oval. The tail is long with a brush of hair at the end. Both males and females have horns, but females have smaller ones. The horns are small or large (length from 15-68 cm in the ban tenga to 60-115 cm in the gaura), located on the sides of the skull, at the base they move to the sides, then bend up and slightly forward; the tops are directed upward and slightly backward and inward. The horns are round in diameter, their surface is smooth. The snow cover is changeable: it can be low and sparse or high and dense. Very long and thick hair can be located along the belly, chest, bottom of the sides and limbs. The color of the hairline differs little in different pitchforks; from reddish brown to dark brown and black. There are no specific skin glands. 2 pairs of nipples.

The skull is large with a shortened brain region and an elongated facial one. The bones of the skull are highly pneumatized. The frontal bones are very large. Their posterior edge forms a ridge between the horns. There are no fossae for the preorbital glands on the lacrimal bones. The ethmoidal openings are absent or very small.

The diploid number of chromosomes in the banteng is 60, the gaura is 58, and the yak is 60.

Distribution covers Europe, North Africa, West, Central and South Asia, including Tibet, Java, Bali, Sumatra and Kalimantan.

They live in different types of forests and jungles, up to sparse ones, avoid swamps, rise to mountains up to 2 thousand meters above sea level. They feed mainly on herbaceous plants, to a lesser extent on leaves and shoots of shrubs. They are active mainly in the early morning and evening. They keep in small herds, mainly of one male and 2-30 females. In yaks, females with juveniles sometimes gather in a herd of up to 2000 individuals together. There is no seasonality in breeding (banteng, gaur) or rut occurs in April-May (cuprey) or September-October (yak). The duration of pregnancy is approximately 270-280 days. There is one, rarely two cubs in the litter. Yak females breed every two years. Sexual maturity occurs at 2-3 years. Life expectancy is 20-25 years.

There are apparently 5 species in the genus:

banteng - V. javanicus D "Alton, 1823 (Burma, Indochina and Malakka, Java and Kalimantan);

gaur - V. gaurus H. Smith, 1827 (India, Nepal, Burma, Indochina and Malacca)

cuprey-B. sauveli Urbain, 1937 (Kampuchea);

tour - B. primigenius Bojanus, 1827 (lived in North Africa, almost all over Europe, to the north up to 6XU N. sh., In the Caucasus, in the Crimea, Asia Minor, in the South Urals, Turkmenistan, Trans-Urals, southern Western Siberia, in the Krasnoyarsk region, Transbaikalia, China from 50 to 40 ° N; in Africa it was exterminated around 2400 BC, in Mesopotamia by 600 BC, in Central and Western Europe by 1400, in Kamenskoe lived in the Kuyaun-Dinskaya steppe district as early as the 16th or 17th centuries, and near Kuznetsk - in the 18th century);

yak - B. tnutus Przewalski, 1883 (Tibet, and in historical time, apparently, Altai and Sayan).

The taxonomy of the genus has not been finally established. So, Simpson (1945), Geptner et al. (1961) include the aura and yak in the genus Bos, and gaura, bantenga and kupreya in the genus Bibos Hodgson, 1837. I.I.Sokolov (1958) proposes the following system: the genus Bos with one species - tour, genus Poephagus Gray, 1843, with one species - yak; and genus Bibos with 3 species - gaur, banteng and cuprey.

Tur served as the ancestor of European cattle (B. primigenius taurus Linnaeus, 1758). The domestication of the aurochs occurred probably in Greece around 2000 BC. Almost all other members of the genus have also been domesticated. Domestic forms of banteng are known on the islands of Bali and Java - B. javanicus domesticus Cans, 1917, gaura - gayal, B. gaurus frontalis Lambert, 1804, yak - domestic yak, IV. mutus grunniens Linnaeus, 1766.

The "Red Book" includes: endangered cuprias (the number in 1970 was 30-70 Jules compared to 500 in 1964) and yaks; small species that may be in danger of extinction in the near future: banteng (very small in number by 1972; in most of the range it completely disappeared and it is believed that it was preserved in the wild only on the islands of Kalimantan and Java) and gaur (preserved only in remote locations and protected parks).

Animals of medium and large sizes.

Characteristics of the genus real bulls

Large animals. The withers are neither high nor raised like a hump. The spinous processes of the first thoracic vertebrae are slightly elongated in comparison with others. The height at the rump is only slightly less than the height at the withers, and sometimes equal to the latter. There is no long hair dewlap on the underside of the neck and head.

The skull is relatively narrow and elongated. The eye sockets protrude moderately to the sides. The greatest width of the skull is less than 60% of the basic length of the skull. The frontal surface, with the exception of the postorbital narrowing, has the shape of an elongated rectangle, its width in front of the bases of the horny rods is approximately equal to the width of the forehead in the orbital region. The postorbital width of the forehead (at the narrowest point between the horns and the orbits) is less than the greatest width of the skull in the zygomatic arches. The posterior margin of the forehead in the form of a well-developed ridge protrudes strongly posteriorly and is sharply delimited from the parietal surface of the skull. The latter does not participate at all in the formation of the roof of the cerebral box. The dorsal surface of the epigastric skull is pushed back, set at an acute angle to the plane of the forehead and obtuse to the plane of the occiput, overhanging the latter. When looking at the skull from above, the posterior exits of the temporal cavities are not visible. The distance between them is greater than the distance between the outer edges of the occipital condyles. The horns extend from the posterior corners of the forehead along the edges of the inter-horny ridge (in a living, calmly standing animal at the very top of the head). The distance between the orbit and the base of the horny process is much greater than the diameter of the orbit. The cross section of the horny processes approaches round, but is always noticeably flattened at the bases in the dorsoventral direction. Longitudinal ribs (keels) on the surface of the horny rods, in contrast to a number of other genera of the subfamily, are absent.

The skeleton contains 13 thoracic vertebrae and 13 pairs of ribs.

Habitat and distribution of real bulls

The roots of the genus real bulls lead to the genus Urmiabos Bartscti., Known from the Lower Pliocene fauna of Maragha in Iranian Azerbaijan and possessing a set of features that make it possible to consider it an ancestral form not only for bulls, but for yaks (Poephagus Gray). Remains known to belong to the genus Bos appear only in the Upper Pliocene. At this time, the long-horned B. acutifrons Lyd. Lived in India, which still had a poorly developed inter-horny ridge. Remains of the same geological age, leaving no doubt about their belonging to the genus of bulls, are known from northern Africa.

The time of the initial appearance of tours on the territory of Europe is not known for certain, but, apparently, they penetrated here through Asia Minor and Central Asia no later than the Upper Pliocene or Lower Pleistocene. N. Vassoevich, among other finds from the Lower Quaternary deposits of the Taman Peninsula, mentions the horny process Bos. However, a description of this corneous process was not given, its location is currently not known and there is no certainty that it belonged to a bull, and not to a primitive bison found in the Taman fauna.

Remains of true bulls are known from the preglacial quarter of the lower Volga and from the Pliocene or Upper Pliocene deposits of the river. Psekupsa in the North Caucasus.

The range of the genus Bos was very extensive. At one time, the tours inhabited, in addition to northern Africa, most of Eurasia, including the British Isles and southern Sweden. To the north, the area of ​​distribution extended to 57-60 ° N. NS. In contrast to the primitive bison, primitive bulls never entered the territory of the New World. Apparently, there were none in Ireland either.

Classification of the genus real bulls

The taxonomy of the genus Bos is confusing. A significant number of forms are described, taken either as subspecies or as independent species. VI Gromova made a thorough revision of the genus, and reduced the whole variety of Quaternary forms of rounds to two species: the large glacial Bos trochoceros Meyer and its descendant, Late Pleistocene and Holocene, B. primigenius Boj, which had somewhat shrunk. The latter existed on the territory of Central and Eastern Europe, and possibly also Central and Asia Minor already in historical times and finally died out at the beginning of the 17th century. N.I.Burchak described from the Upper Pleistocene fauna of the Binagads on the Absheron Peninsula (wurm) a new species of bull B. mastan-zadei Burtsch., Which is close in craniological features to the Pleistocene Indian species B. namadicus Falc. However, the specific independence of the form described by N.I.Burchak is questionable, since V.I.Gromova takes B. namadicus only for a subspecies of B. trochoceros.

Finds of remains of diluvial tours (Bos trochoceros) on the territory of Europe are rare.

The question of dwarf forms of rounds remains controversial and unclear: B. longifrons Ow., B. minutus Malsb., B. brachyceros europaeus Adam. The size of the skull in these forms in some cases does not exceed those of the skulls of small races of livestock. However, belonging to the latter is excluded in some cases by the geological age of the finds, in others - by the morphological features of dwarf tours. Some researchers mistaken small skulls for the skulls of females B. primigenius Boj. However, it should be borne in mind that some of the finds of dwarf tours are of the Pleistocene age. Consequently, even with the assumption of a strongly expressed sexual dimorphism in the size of aurochs, it is difficult to recognize these findings as the skulls of females with the gigantic sizes of the skulls of diluvial males.

Within Europe, the remains of dwarf tours were found in Armenia in the bottom sediments of Lake. Sevan and in the basin of the river. Ural. The question of the systematic position of dwarf tours is important in connection with the problem of the origin of some groups of domestic cattle.

At present, the genus real bulls is represented only by the domestic form, the cattle B. taurus L., but already in historical times on the territory of the USSR, the primitive bull, or the tour B. primigenius Bojanus, was in the wild.

Infraclass - placental

Subfamily - bulls

Nadrod - bulls and buffaloes

Rod - real bulls

Literature:

1.I.I. Sokolov "Fauna of the USSR, Ungulates" Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1959.

Kira Stoletova

Domestic cows are familiar to everyone, they are affectionate, obedient, give milk, etc. But a wild bull or cow is a more exotic phenomenon, and yet they are relatives of the domesticated cattle. It is about such wild species that will be discussed below.

Progenitor tour

Let's start with the strongest bovine species, which, unfortunately, is no longer on our planet. This tour is the ancestor of all modern cattle. In terms of endurance and productivity, no one can match the tour so far.

He was called the "wild forest bull." The tour lived in Europe, in the North of Africa, in the Caucasus, in Asia Minor. The last individuals died out in 1627 due to illness.

They lived in forest-steppes and forests, gathered in small herds or existed alone. Their food was grass, shoots, etc.

Description

It was a huge animal, up to 180 cm tall and 800 kg in weight. The body of the males of the tur was covered with black wool, and on the back there was a small stripe of white color. Females, like young animals, walked brown.

Cause of disappearance

The reason why tours no longer inhabit the earth and we see them only in pictures is a person. Wild animals were constantly hunted. In addition, their home, forest thickets, were actively cut down as civilization developed.

Scientists do not abandon their attempts to revive the lost appearance of the majestic bulls, which, even in the absence of comfortable living conditions and food, could become a legend.

Bison and bison

Buffalo

Bison is another wild bull, the strength and size of which are surprising even in the photo. Its history goes back to the Stone Age. Outwardly, it is very similar to a bison, it is easy to confuse them.

The main characteristics of the bison's appearance are called a hump, formed by a high and steep withers, and a low set head with a very wide frontal region. The ends of its short horns are bent inward. Its massiveness is given by dense vegetation on the front of the body (on the chin, neck, shoulders), knocked to shreds. The tail is short, decorated with a tassel.

With a mass of up to 1.2 tons (for females - 700 kg), a body length of 2.5-3 m and a height of 1.9 m, the bison is one of the largest of all ungulates on the planet.

Its color is black, gray or brown, with lighter coat on the shoulders, and calves are usually very light, yellow, although occasionally you can find light adults.

Bison lifestyle

Bison are characterized by measured behavior, non-aggressive outside the danger zone. If you need to save your life, they run at 50 km / h. Representatives of these wild animals swim, have excellent hearing and scent, but their eyesight is very poor.

Bison feed mainly at night. They eat grass.

Their habitat is North America (Canada, central states).

The following subspecies are distinguished:

• forest (live to the north, in the forest);
• plain or steppe (live in the southern prairies).

Preservation

Today, they are trying to keep North American bison in protected areas, in zoos, since their number has sharply decreased since the 19th century. Millions of livestock of their mighty ancestors became vulnerable to European colonialists. They were killed just for fun or to deprive the local Indians of food. In 1889, only 835 copies remained.

They are listed in the Red Book, but through the efforts of the authorities of Canada and the United States, today our planet has up to 30 thousand individuals of this species (not counting the tamed half-breeds).

Bison

Bison brothers, bison, live in Russia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania. In Europe, they are the largest mammals and also the last of all wild bulls inhabiting Europe.

The bison's head is more pronounced than that of a bison and somewhat smaller in size. The shape of the body is close to a square, the body is massive, the tail is short. The color is brown, the coat becomes longer from the back of the head and on the spine.

These animals swim well, jump high, live up to 40 years.

Distinguish between Caucasian and Belovezhsk bison. The first became extinct at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the second are under the patronage of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Due to the outstanding genetic qualities of bison and bison, they are trying to domesticate and use it in breeding new breeds.

Buffalo

Other worthy representatives of wild bulls and cows are buffaloes, relatives of bison, yaks, etc.

There are two types of buffaloes:

• Asian (tamarau, mountain anoa, anoa, asiatic buffalo);
• African.

Asiatic genus

A specimen of the Asian genus is a wild bull with huge horns under 2 m in length. His horns look back and resemble a crescent. Buffalo height is about 2 m, body length - 3 m, weight - up to 900 kg.

There are also small specimens among them. This is tamarau. Their height is 106 cm, their mass is not more than 300 kg, the body is 220 cm long.There are also anoas 80 cm high and 300 kg in weight, they have no wool, are brown or black, they nibble grass at night, hide from the scorching sun during the day. plunged into the mud.

By the will of man, the species is on the verge of extinction, although it is placed in protected areas. For example, tamarau do not give birth in captivity. Most Asian buffaloes are domesticated. They give milk. They live in Southern Europe, Africa, South Asia.

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African genus

The African buffalo is divided into subspecies: Cape, Sudanese, dwarf (red), mountain, Nile. As the name implies, he lives in Africa (mountains, savannahs, forest). Likes to live near large sources of water and in fields with dense vegetation, but is able to feed on dried up shrubs.

The weight of Africans sometimes reaches 1200 kg, and their height is 1.6 m. The build is stocky, the legs are short. The head is decorated with powerful horns bent upward. The length between the two ends of the horns is about 1 m. On the forehead of males, they grow together, turning into a bulletproof helmet.

The color is black or dark brown, the hair is coarse, sparse.

Poor vision is compensated by excellent hearing and smell. These are collective animals, ready to come to the rescue of their fellow man and pull him out of the clutches of a predatory beast.

Zebu, yak and gaur

Zebu

Zebu is a resident of hot regions (Africa, South America, Asia), but India is considered his homeland. The muscle-fat hump is his calling card.

Another feature is that this wild bull is not afraid of bloodsuckers, because grease with a specific aroma is released from the skin, and they are also not afraid of high temperatures.

In India, this representative was tamed and used in agriculture for transportation, etc.

Yaks

It is not easy to study a yak, he shuns people, although some of the animals are domesticated, brings milk, meat, wool. In the wild, he is comfortable. Strong and ferocious, it can withstand the harshest conditions. Currently lives in Tibet.

Its height is about 2 m, body length is 4 m (females are smaller: under 1.6 m in height). Huge horns, 95 cm, adorn his head, diverge to the sides, then bend over. A hump flaunts on the back. The coat is shaggy and very long, covering the limbs completely. The coloring is gray-black, brown, white spots on the muzzle.

Gaur

The Indian gaur is an example of a peace-loving giant. With such an impressive size (height 2.2 m and above, weight 1000-1500 kg), he is not at all fierce. Although the wild gaur cows are much smaller in size, they are completely fearless. Giaurs have strong long limbs and large horns that grow perpendicular to the ground.

These animals are also called Indian bison, and tamed individuals are called gayals. Their coloring is dark brown, but the legs are light.

The largest number of bulls survived in the dense thickets of the jungles of Indonesia and India.

Bulls are the largest bovids. They are powerful and strong animals. Their massive body rests on strong limbs, a heavy, wide, low-set head in both males and females is crowned with horns, thick and short in some species, flattened and long in others. The shape of the horns is also very variable in different representatives: in some cases the horns resemble a simple crescent, in others they are S-shaped. There are no interdigital glands. The tail is relatively thin, with a brush at the end. The hair is short, close to the body, or thick and shaggy.

Representatives of the subfamily are distributed in Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. The subfamily includes 4 genera with 10 species, of which one in the wild was exterminated by humans in historical time, but exists in the form of numerous breeds of domestic cows, which were also brought to South America and Australia.

Anoa, or dwarf buffalo(Bubalus depressicornis), - the smallest of modern wild bulls: height at the withers 60-100 barely, weight 150-300 kg. The small head and slender legs make the anoa look somewhat like an antelope. The horns are short (up to 39 cm), almost straight, slightly flattened, bent up and back.

The coloration is dark brown or blackish with white markings on the muzzle, throat and legs. Calves with thick golden brown fur. Distributed only on the island of Sulawesi. Many researchers distinguish anoa as a special genus of anoa (Apoa).

Anoa inhabit swampy forests and jungles, where they live alone or in pairs, rarely forming small groups. They feed on grassy vegetation, leaves, shoots and fruits that they can pick up on the ground; often eat aquatic plants. Anoa usually graze in the early morning, and spend the hot time of the day near the water, where they willingly take mud baths and swim. They move at a slow pace, but in case of danger they switch to a fast, albeit clumsy, gallop. The breeding season is not associated with a specific season of the year. Pregnancy lasts 275-315 days.

Anoa do not cope well with the agricultural transformation of the landscape. In addition, they are intensively hunted for meat and hide, which some local tribes use to make ritual dance costumes. Therefore, the number of anoa is dramatically decreasing, and now the species is on the verge of complete extinction. Fortunately, they reproduce relatively easily in zoos, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature maintains a herd book of captive animals in order to create at least a minimal reserve stock of animals of this species.

Indian buffalo(Bubalus agpee), on the contrary, is one of the largest bulls: the height at the withers is up to 180 cm, the weight of males is up to 1000 kg. The flattened, turned back horns of the Indian buffalo are huge - they reach a length of 194 cm.The body is covered with sparse and coarse blackish-brown hair

.

The range of the Indian buffalo has been greatly reduced already in historical time: if still relatively recently it covered a huge territory, from North Africa and Mesopotamia to Central China, now it is limited to small areas of Nepal, Assam, Bengal, the central provinces of India, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and southern China. The Indian buffalo has survived in the extreme north of Ceylon and the northern part of Kalimantan. The number of the Indian buffalo, despite the protective measures, continues to decline. Most of the wild buffalo remained in the reserves of India. So, in the remarkable reserve Kaziranga (Assam) in 1969, there were about 700 heads. Poaching is not the only reason for the decline, although it plays a significant role. The main problem is that the wild buffalo easily interbreeds with feral domesticated ones and the “pure” species, as such, is lost.

On the island of Mindoro (Philippines) in a special reserve Iglit lives a special, dwarf subspecies, slightly larger than the anoa, which bears a special name tamarow(B. a. Mindorensis). Unfortunately, the tamarou is threatened with complete extinction: by 1969, about 100 animals survived.

The Indian buffalo inhabits the heavily swampy jungle and densely scrubbed river valleys. It is connected with water more closely than other representatives of the subfamily, and does not occur outside river systems or swamps. In the diet of the Indian buffalo, aquatic and coastal plants play an even greater role than land grasses. Buffaloes graze at night and at dawn, and all day, starting from 7-8 o'clock in the morning, lie plunged into liquid mud.

Indian buffaloes are usually kept in small herds, which include an old bull, two or three young bulls and several cows with calves. The hierarchy of subordination in the herd, if observed, is not too strict. The old bull often keeps somewhat away from other animals, but when fleeing from danger, he watches the herd and returns the stray cows with blows of horns. When moving, a certain order is observed: old females walk in the head, calves in the middle, and young bulls and cows make up the rearguard. In case of danger, the herd usually hides in the thickets, describes a semicircle and, stopping, waits for the pursuer on its own tracks.

The Indian buffalo is a serious opponent. Especially quarrelsome, aggressive and dangerous are the old bulls, whom the young are expelled from the herd, and who are forced to lead the life of hermits. They often drive away herds of domestic buffaloes, and when pursuing them, they even attack tame elephants. On the contrary, herds of buffaloes willingly rest side by side with rhinos. Tigers rarely attack buffaloes, and even then only young ones. In turn, buffaloes, sensing the trail of a tiger, go berserk and chase the predator in close formation until they overtake or lose the trail. Tiger deaths have been reported on several occasions.

Like most tropical inhabitants, the rutting and calving periods of Indian buffaloes are not associated with a particular season. Pregnancy lasts 300-340 days, after which the female brings only one calf. A newborn buffalo is dressed in fluffy yellow-brown fur. The milk feeding period lasts 6-9 months.

Man domesticated the buffalo in time immemorial, presumably in the III millennium BC. NS. Along with the zebu, the domestic buffalo is one of the most important animals in the tropics. According to the most rough estimate, its population in South Asia now reaches 75 million. Domestic buffalo was introduced to Japan, Hawaii, Central and South America and Australia. There are a lot of domestic buffaloes in the United Arab Republic, Sudan and East African countries, including Zanzibar, and on the islands of Mauritius and Madagascar. For a very long time, buffalo has been cultivated in Southern Europe and here in the Transcaucasus. The buffalo is used mainly as a draft force, especially in the processing of rice fields. Dairy buffalo breeding is also promising. In Italy, with stall housing, the annual milk production per cow is 1970 liters. Buffalo milk contains 8% fat, significantly superior to cow milk in protein content. In India, where cows are sacred animals, buffalo does not fall into this category and is the main source of meat products. Domestic buffalo is extremely unpretentious, resistant to many diseases of cattle, and has a peaceful character.

African buffalo(Syncerus caffer) is the most powerful of modern wild bulls. A powerful body, relatively low muscular legs, a blunt, short, low-set head on a strong neck and small, seemingly dim eyes, looking suspiciously from under the canopy of horns, give the animal an indestructible and gloomy look. The horns of the African buffalo are brought together by wide bases, forming a continuous armor on the forehead, then they diverge downward - to the sides and, finally, bend up and slightly inward with sharp smooth ends. The distance between the ends of the horns sometimes exceeds a meter. In size, the African buffalo is somewhat inferior to the Indian one, but due to its denser constitution it surpasses it in mass: old males reach 1200 kg. The body of the buffalo is covered with sparse coarse hair that hardly covers the dark brown or black skin

.

The foregoing applies, however, only to animals living in the savannas of East, South-East and South-West Africa. Buffaloes, found from Senegal to the middle reaches of the Nile, form another, somewhat smaller and short-legged subspecies.

Finally, the forests of the Congo basin and the coast of the Gulf of Guinea are inhabited by a third subspecies, the so-called red buffalo, characterized by very small size (height at the withers 100-130 cm), bright red thick hair and even weaker horns.

The habitat of the African buffalo is diverse: it can be found in all landscapes, from tropical forests to arid shrub savannas. In the mountains, the African buffalo rises to an altitude of 3000 m or more above sea level. However, everywhere it is closely connected with water and does not live far from water bodies.

In addition, the buffalo does not get along well in the agricultural landscape. Therefore, despite the significant area of ​​distribution, the buffalo survived in large numbers in only a few places, mainly in national parks. Only there he forms herds numbering hundreds of animals. For example, in Lake Manyara National Park (Tanzania), a herd of 450 heads is constantly kept. Usually there are groups of 20-30 animals, which gather in herds only during dry periods. Such groups are different in composition: in some cases these are cows with calves, in others - only bulls, and finally, in the third - bulls with cows. Old strong bulls are often held alone or in pairs.

In the lifestyle of the African buffalo, there are many features that make it akin to the Indian. It feeds on grassy vegetation, often eats coastal plants and only occasionally branches and foliage, grazes from evening to dawn, and usually spends the day standing in the shade of a tree or lying in swamp mud or in thickets of reeds. Buffaloes are cautious animals. Cows and calves are especially sensitive. A slight noise or an unfamiliar smell is enough to alert the whole herd and freeze in a defensive position: males in front, females with calves behind. The heads of the animals are raised at such a moment, the horns are thrown back; a moment - and the herd together turns to flight. Despite its heavy build, the buffalo is very agile and fast: on the run it develops a speed of up to 57 km / h. Studies in the Congo have shown that adult males living alone have an individual area to which they are very attached. They rest every day, graze, make transitions in strictly defined places of the site and leave it only when they begin to be bothered or there is a lack of food. If a herd of outside buffaloes enters the site, the owner does not show aggressiveness, but adjoins him and even plays the role of a leader. However, when the herd leaves, he remains on the site again.

With the beginning of the rut, such loners join the herds of cows. Ritual fights for dominance in the herd then arise between the bulls. The first phase of the battle is intimidation: rivals with their heads held high, snorting and blasting the ground with their hooves, head towards each other and stop a few meters away, shaking their horns threateningly. Then, bending their heads, the opponents rush forward and collide with the massive bases of the horns with a deafening crash. After several such blows, the one who admits himself defeated turns and runs away.

Pregnancy lasts 10-11 months; mass calving, when cows retire from the general herd, falls at the end of the dry season and the beginning of the rainy season. The calf suckles its mother for about six months.

Buffaloes have few enemies. Only lions regularly collect tribute from them, attacking cows and young animals with a whole pride. Of the three cases when we ourselves were fortunate enough to see the lions at food, in two the victim was a buffalo. At the same time, lions do not dare to attack old bulls, and even more so with small forces. There are many known cases when buffaloes, acting in a friendly herd, put lions to flight, seriously wounded them or even killed them. The stray calves are occasionally attacked by a leopard.

Buffaloes do not team up with other ungulates. But you can constantly see Egyptian herons near them, which often sit on the backs of grazing or resting buffaloes. Frequent on buffalo and dragging.

It is curious that buffaloes tend to have a sense of mutual assistance. The Belgian zoologist Verhayen watched as two bulls tried to raise their mortally wounded fellow to their feet with their horns, prompted to this by his dying moo. When this failed, both swiftly attacked the hunter, who barely managed to escape.

A lot has been written in hunting books that the buffalo is dangerous to humans and fierce. Indeed, many people died from the horns and hooves of the buffalo. The wounded buffalo, running away, makes a full circle and hides on its own trail. In the midst of thickets, a suddenly attacked person usually does not even have time to shoot. However, such provoked self-defense can hardly be regarded as particularly aggressive or ferocious.

A man has been chasing a buffalo for a long time. The Masai, who do not accept the meat of most wild animals, make an exception for the buffalo, considering it a relative of the domestic cow. Of great value to Africans was buffalo skin, from which combat shields were made. Yes, and among European and American hunter-sportsmen, the buffalo head is considered to this day an honorable trophy. However, much greater devastation among buffaloes was caused by epizootics of rinderpest, introduced to Africa at the end of the last century with the cattle of white settlers.

Genus of real bulls(Bos) has 4 modern species common in Asia.

Gaur(V. gaurus) stands out among the bulls for its special beauty, size and some kind of completeness of constitution. If the appearance of the African buffalo can symbolize indomitable power, then the gaur personifies calm confidence and strength. The height at the withers of old males reaches 213 cm, weight -800-1000 kg. Thick and massive horns from the base are bent slightly down and back, and then up and slightly inward. Their length in males reaches 100-115 cm, and the distance between the ends is 120 cm. The forehead is wide, flat. Gaura females are much smaller, their horns are shorter and thinner. The hair is dense, short, close to the body, the color is brilliant black, less often dark brown, on the legs of animals there are white "stockings"

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Although the range of the gaura covers a huge territory, including India, Nepal, Burma, Assam and the peninsulas of Indochina and Malacca, the number of this bull is small. In fact, it has survived only in national parks and reserves. Not only hunters are to blame for this, but also frequent epizootics of foot and mouth disease, plague and other diseases. True, the strict prohibition of hunting throughout the territory and vigorous quarantine supervision seem to have marked a certain turning point in the position of the gaura, and its number has slightly increased in recent years.

Gaur inhabits wooded areas, preferring mountain forests up to 2000 m above sea level; however, he avoids continuous forests with dense undergrowth and keeps in clarified areas near clearings. At the same time, gaura can be found in bamboo jungles, as well as on grassy plains with shrubs. He resolutely avoids cultivated land. Gaura's favorite food is fresh grass, young bamboo shoots, and shrub shoots. He needs regular watering and bathing, but, unlike buffaloes, he does not take mud baths. Gauras graze early in the morning and before sunset, and sleep at night and at noon.

Gauras are kept in small groups, which usually include 1-2 adult bulls, 2-3 young bulls, 5-10 cows with calves and adolescents. Along with this, groups consisting only of young bulls are not uncommon. Adult strong males often leave the herd and lead the life of hermits.

In a herd of Gauras, a certain order is always observed. Calves are usually kept together, and the entire "kindergarten" is under the vigilant protection of mothers. The leader of the herd is often an old cow, which, when the herd escapes, is in the head or, conversely, in the rearguard. The old bulls, as observations have shown, do not participate in defense and do not even react to the alarm signal, which sounds like a piercing snort. Hearing such a snort, the other members of the herd freeze, raising their heads, and, if the source of the alarm is established, the nearest animal emits a rumbling bellow, at which the herd takes up battle formation.

An extremely interesting way of attacking the gaura. Unlike other bulls, he attacks not with his forehead, but sideways, and lowers his head low and crouches somewhat on his hind legs, striking with one horn to the side. It has been noticed that in old bulls one of the horns is noticeably more worn out than the other. The zoologist J. Schaller believes that this style of attack developed from the usual for the Gauz posture of impression and threat, when the animal shows its huge silhouette in the most impressive foreshortening. By the way, the fights of the gauras, as a rule, do not go beyond demonstrations.

The Gaura rutting period begins in November and ends in March - April. Solitary males at this time join the herds, and fights are not uncommon between them. The peculiar calling roar of a gaura during the rut is similar to the roar of stag-deer and can be heard in the evening or at night at a distance of more than one and a half kilometers. Pregnancy lasts 270-280 days, calving more often in August - September. At the time of calving, the cow is removed from the herd and in the first days is extremely careful and aggressive. She usually brings one calf, rarely twins. The milk-feeding period ends at the ninth month of the calf's life.

Gauras willingly unite in herds with sambars and other ungulates. They are almost not afraid of tigers, although tigers occasionally attack young animals. The zoologist Olivier describes the special friendship of the gauras with wild chickens, who in 1955 managed to observe how a young rooster for two weeks daily cleaned the festering, damaged horns of a female gaura. Despite the painfulness of this operation, the cow, at the sight of the rooster, put its head on the ground and turned the horn towards the "orderly".

Guyale is nothing more than a domesticated gaur. But as a result of domestication, the guyal has changed a lot: it is much smaller, lighter and weaker than a gaura, its muzzle is shorter, its forehead is wider, the horns are relatively short, very thick, straight, conical. Guyal is more phlegmatic and calmer than a gaura. At the same time, gayals are kept differently from domestic cows in Europe. They always graze in complete freedom, and when it is necessary to catch a guyala, they lure him with a piece of rock salt or tie a cow in the forest. Guyala is used for meat, in some places it is used as a draft force, and among some peoples of South Asia it serves as a kind of money or is used as a sacrificial animal. Guyala cows often mate with wild gauras.

Banteng(B. javanicus) - the second wild representative of the actual bulls, inhabits the islands of Kalimantan, Java and the peninsulas of Indochina and Malacca to the west to Brahmaputra. Banteng populations are low and declining throughout. According to the latest information, no more than 400 animals have survived in Java; in some areas of Kalimantan, the banteng has been completely exterminated.

Banteng is noticeably smaller than a gaura: height at the withers is 130-170 cm, weight is -500-900 kg. Banteng is slimmer, lighter and taller. The dorsal ridge, characteristic of the gaura, is absent in the banteng. The horns are flattened at the base, first diverge to the sides, and then more or less abruptly bent upward. The color of the banteng is variable. Most often bulls are dark brown or black with white "stockings" and "mirror", while females are reddish brown

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Banteng's favorite habitats are swampy forests with well-developed undergrowth, grassy plains with shrubs, bamboo jungles or light mountain forests with clearings. In the mountains, the banteng rises up to 2000 m. Like the gaur, the banteng avoids the cultural landscape and is increasingly pushed into the depths of forests and mountains.

Bantengs usually live in groups, which include two or three young bulls and up to two dozen cows, calves and growing young. Old strong bulls keep separate and adjoin the herd only during the rutting season. In terms of ease and beauty of movements, these bulls are not inferior to many antelopes. Like a gaur, banteng feeds on fresh grass, young shoots and leaves of shrubs, and bamboo seedlings. Pregnancy lasts 270-280 days, the newborn calf is dressed in yellow-brown fur, it sucks its mother's milk until the age of nine months.

In Bali and Java, banteng has been domesticated for a very long time. By crossing a banteng with a zebu, an unpretentious cattle was obtained, which is used on numerous islands in Indonesia as a draft force and as a source of meat and milk.

In the early 1930s, the director of the Paris Zoo, A. Urben, traveled to northern Cambodia. In the house of the veterinarian Savel, he, to his great amazement, saw horns that could not have belonged to any known wild bull. Inquiries did not shed light on this find, and Urbain was forced to leave with nothing. A year later, he received a live calf of this bull from Savel. From this specimen, which lived in the zoo until 1940, Urbain described a new species, naming it in Latin after Dr. Savel. So entered the science cuprey(B. sauveli). It was a sensational discovery.

Kuprey smaller than a gaura, but somewhat larger than a banteng: the height of bulls at the withers is up to 190 cm, weight is up to 900 kg. The fold is lighter, more graceful than that of a gaura. The legs of the cupreus are higher. He has a strongly developed dewlap, a heavy skin fold on the throat, reaching to the chest. The horns of the cuprei are long, rather thin, sharp, similar to the horns of a yak, from the base they go first obliquely to the sides and back, then forward and up, while the ends are bent inward. The color is dark brown, and the legs, like those of the gaura, are white.

The horns of the cuprey have a curious feature: in old males, a corolla is located near the sharp end of the horn, which consists of split parts of the corneous sheath. It is formed when the horn grows, and this phenomenon is known for other bovids. However, in all this corolla is quickly erased, and only in cupra it is preserved throughout life. It is assumed that the complex shape of the horns does not allow the animal to butt, as other bulls do in arousal, and that is why the corolla, which is the remnants of a “child's” horn, does not wear off.

The area of ​​the cuprei is limited to a small area on both sides of the Mekong, which is administratively part of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

According to calculations made in 1957, 650-850 animals lived on this site. Surveys carried out by the zoologist P. Pfeffer in 1970 showed that only 30-70 animals survived in Cambodia. Perhaps, in the border regions of Laos and China, in the forests of Sasinpan, several dozen more heads have survived. One way or another, cupric should be classified as one of the rarest species of bulls.

Information about the lifestyle of kuprey is scarce. Like banteng, it inhabits forests with dense undergrowth, park savannas with scattered bushes here and there, and light forests with clearings. On pastures, herds of cupreas are often combined with bantengs. However, both species in united herds do not mix completely, maintaining a known distance. The herd consists of an old bull and several cows and calves. As a rule, the herd is led by one of the cows, and the bull is in the rearguard. Some of the adult bulls, like the gaura, live alone. The rut of the cuprias falls in April - May. Calving takes place in December - January. Cows with calves retire from the herd and return after a month or two. Observations have shown that cuprum does not take mud baths. They are very sensitive, careful and at the slightest danger try to leave unnoticed. For the first time in 1969 the zoologist P. Pfeffer managed to photograph a cuprea in nature.

Yak(B. mutus) stands apart from the actual bulls, and sometimes experts distinguish it into a special subgenus (Poophagus). It is a very large animal with a long body, relatively short legs and a heavy, low-set head. The height at the withers is up to 2 m, the weight of old bulls is up to 1000 kg. There is a small hump at the withers of the yak, which makes the back seem very sloping. The horns are long, but not thick, widely spaced, directed to the sides from the base, and then bent forward and upward; their length is up to 95 cm, and the distance between the ends is 90 cm. The most remarkable feature in the structure of the yak is the hairline. If on most of the body the hair is thick and even, then on the legs, sides and belly it is long and shaggy, forming a kind of continuous "skirt", almost reaching the ground. The tail is also covered with long coarse hair and resembles a horse

The range of the yak is limited to Tibet. Perhaps, earlier it was more widespread and reached the Sayan and Altai, but the information on which such assumptions are based may refer to a domestic, second feral yak.

The yak inhabits treeless alpine rubble semi-deserts crossed by valleys with swamps and lakes. In the mountains, it rises up to 5200 m. In August and September, yaks go to the border of eternal snows, and spend the winter in the valleys, content with the scarce herbaceous vegetation that they can get from under the snow. They need a watering hole and only in extreme cases eat snow. Yaks usually graze in the morning and before sunset, and at night they sleep, sheltered from the wind behind a rock or in a hollow. Thanks to the "skirt" and dense fur, yaks easily endure the harsh climate of the Tibetan highlands. When the animal lies down on the snow, the "skirt", like a mattress, protects it from the cold from below. According to the observations of the zoologist E. Shefer, who made three expeditions to Tibet, yaks love to swim even in cold weather, and during storms they stand motionless for hours, turning their croup to the wind.

Yaks do not form large herds. Most often they keep in groups of 3-5 animals, and only young ones gather in somewhat large herds. Old bulls are solitary. However, as the remarkable traveler N.M. Przhevalsky, who first described the wild yak, testifies, a hundred years ago herds of yak cows with small calves reached several hundred, or even thousands of heads.

It should be noted that adult yaks are well armed, very strong and ferocious. Wolves dare to attack them only in exceptional cases in a large flock and in deep snow. In turn, bull yaks, without hesitation, attack the person pursuing them, especially if the animal is wounded. The attacking yak holds its head and tail high with a fluttering plume of hair. Of the sense organs, the sense of smell is best developed in the yak. Vision and hearing are significantly weaker.

Yaks race in September - October. At this time, the bulls join the groups of cows. Fierce fights take place between the bulls, completely unlike the ritualized fights of most other bovids. Opponents during the fight try to hit each other in the side with a horn. True, the fatal outcome of these battles is rare, and the case is limited to wounds, sometimes very serious. During the rutting season, the yak's calling roar is heard, at other times it is extremely silent.

Calving in yaks takes place in June, after a nine-month gestation. The calf is not separated from its mother for about a year.

Like most other wild bulls, the yak belongs to the category of animals that are rapidly disappearing from our planet. Perhaps his position is especially deplorable. The yak cannot stand the places occupied by people. In addition, the yak is an enviable prey for hunters, and direct pursuit completes what the herders began, pushing the yaks out of their pastures. The yak is listed in the Red Book, but the low availability of its habitats makes it practically impossible to control its protection.

Even in antiquity, in the 1st millennium BC. e., the yak was domesticated by man. Domestic yaks are smaller and more phlegmatic than wild ones, among them hornless individuals are often found, color is very changeable. Yak is used in Tibet and other parts of Central Asia, in Mongolia, Tuva, Altai, Pamir and Tien Shan. The yak is an irreplaceable beast of burden in the highlands. It produces excellent milk, meat and wool without requiring maintenance. Domestic yak crossed with cows, and received haynyks very comfortable as draft animals.

Unfortunately, only in the past tense can we talk about bull round(B. primigenius). The last representative of this species died less than 350 years ago, in 1627. In folklore, in ancient books, in ancient painting and sculpture, the tour, however, has survived to this day, and we can not only clearly imagine its appearance, but also with with great confidence to talk about its past distribution and way of life.

The tour was much slimmer and lighter than its relatives, although it almost did not yield to them in size

High-legged, muscular, with a straight back and a high-set head on a powerful neck, with sharp and long blond horns, the tour was extraordinarily beautiful. The bulls were dull black with a narrow white "belt" along the back, the cows were bay, reddish brown.

The tour was conducted almost throughout Europe, in North Africa, in Asia Minor and in the Caucasus. However, in Africa, it was exterminated already in 2400 BC. e., in Mesopotamia - by 600 BC. e., in Central and Western Europe - by 1400 The longest tours were held in Poland and Lithuania, where they had already lived under protection for the last centuries, almost in the position of park animals.

In the last period of their existence in Europe, the tours lived in damp, swampy forests. In all likelihood, the attachment to forests was forced. Even earlier, the tours, apparently, inhabited forest-steppe and sparse forests, interspersed with meadows, often entered even real steppes. It is possible that they migrated to the forests only in winter, preferring meadow pastures in summer. Tours ate grass, shoots and leaves of trees and bushes, acorns. The rut of the tours took place in September, and calving in the spring. The tours lived in small groups and alone, for the winter they huddled in larger herds. They had a wild and evil disposition, were not afraid of humans and were very aggressive. They had no enemies: the wolves were powerless against the rounds. Mobility, lightness and strength made the tour a very dangerous animal indeed. Prince Vladimir Monomakh, who left behind some interesting notes and was an excellent hunter, reports that "there are two rounds of me on a rosette (horns) and with a horse." The fact that during excavations of Paleolithic and even Neolithic sites, almost no bones of the auroch were found, some researchers are inclined to explain the difficulty and danger of hunting for it.

The tour, so to speak, rendered the man a huge, invaluable service. It was he who turned out to be the ancestor of all modern breeds of cattle - the main source of meat, milk and leather. Tour domestication occurred at the dawn of modern mankind, apparently sometime between 8000 and 6000 AD. BC NS. Certain breeds of domesticated cows, such as the Camargue cattle and Spanish fighting bulls, retain the main features of the wild tur. They can be easily traced in other breeds as well: in English park and Scottish cattle, in Hungarian steppe cows, in gray Ukrainian cattle.

There is contradictory information regarding the place of domestication of the tour. Apparently, this process proceeded independently and non-simultaneously in different places: in the Mediterranean, Central Europe, and South Asia. In all likelihood, originally domestic bulls were cult animals, and then they began to be used as a draft force. The use of cows for milk production came a little later.

Cattle plays a huge role in the economy of modern mankind and is distributed throughout the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that, based on special needs and climatic conditions, man bred a very large number of breeds

.

In the Soviet Union, in Western Europe and North America, dairy and combined breeds are cultivated, less often meat breeds. Among the dairy breeds, the Yaroslavl, Kholmogorsk, Red Danish, Red Steppe, Ost-Frisian, Angeln are especially famous. The annual milk yield of these cows is 3000 - 4000 liters with a fat content of about 4%. Combined breeds are bred even more widely, giving both dairy and meat products. Combined breeds include Kostroma, Simmental, Red Gorbatovskaya, Schwyz, Shorthorn, Red and Motley German. Pure beef cattle breeding in Europe and North America is practiced on a smaller scale. The main beef breeds can be considered the Hereford, Astrakhan, Aberdino-Angus. Predominantly beef cattle breeding is developed in South America, Argentina and Uruguay, where local, relatively unproductive, but unpretentious breeds are cultivated.

South and Southeast Asia is dominated by humpback zebu cattle, also brought to Africa and South America. Zebu They are significantly less productive than European cows (the annual milk yield from one zebu does not exceed 180 liters), but they are faster on the move, and therefore are often used as draft force and even for riding. In India, zebu cows are sacred animals and cannot be killed. This leads to a paradoxical fact: for 500 million people, there are about 160 million cows that do not produce meat and almost do not give milk.

Extremely interesting livestock watussi one of the East African tribes. In bulls and cows of this breed, colossal horns attract attention, the girth of which at the base reaches half a meter. This cattle has a purely cult significance, making up the wealth and glory of the owner. Almost as unproductive are the cattle of the Masai, Samburu, Karamoja and other herding tribes. In addition to milk, these tribes also use blood, which they take during their lifetime, making a puncture in the cervical vein with an arrow. This operation is harmless to livestock; from a bull they get 4-5 liters of blood per month, from a cow - no more than half a liter.

About 40 years ago, two zoologists, the brothers Lutz and Heinz Heck, in the Berlin and Munich zoos began in parallel the so-called restoration of the wild tour. They proceeded from the premise that the genes of the tur are scattered among its domestic descendants and for the revival of the tur, it is only necessary to put them together again. Through painstaking selection work with Camargue cattle, Spanish bulls, English park, Corsican, Hungarian steppe, Scottish cattle and other primitive breeds, they managed to obtain animals that outwardly almost indistinguishable from the tour. Bulls have a typical black color, characteristic horns and a light "belt" on back, cows and calves are bay. The fact that the Heck brothers were able to restore even a sharp sexual dimorphism of color, which was not present in any of the original breeds, undoubtedly indicates a deep restructuring of the hereditary code in the resulting animal. But the "reconstituted" tour is only a form of livestock.

To the family bison(Bison) also includes very large and powerful bulls, which are characterized by short, thick, but sharp horns, high, hump, withers, sloping back, thick mane and beard of long hair

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In physique, a sharp disproportion between the powerful front part and the relatively weak croup is striking. The weight of bulls sometimes reaches 850-1000 kg, the height at the withers is up to 2 m. Females are much smaller. The genus includes 2 systematically close and outwardly similar species: European bison(B. bonasus) and American bison(B. bison). Both species literally miraculously did not share the fate of the tour, and although the immediate danger has passed, their future is entirely in the hands of man.

Even in historical times, the bison lived in most of Europe, and a special subspecies (B. bonasus caucasicus) lived in the Caucasus, which was distinguished by a lighter constitution. The bison inhabited sparse deciduous forests with clearings, forest-steppe and even steppe with floodplain and watershed forests. As humans settled more and more space, the bison retreated into the depths of untouched forests. In the steppe zone of Eastern Europe, bison disappeared in the 16th - 17th centuries, in the forest-steppe - at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries. In Western Europe, it was destroyed much earlier, for example, in France - in the 6th century. Driven by human persecution, the bison survived for the longest time in continuous, partly swampy or mountain forests. However, even here he did not find salvation: in 1762 the last bison was killed in the Radnan Mountains in Romania, by 1793 it was destroyed in the mountain forests of Saxony. And only in two places - in Belovezhskaya Pushcha and in the Western Caucasus - bison in their natural state survived until the beginning of the 20th century. The First World War, the Civil War, the intervention and years of devastation had a tragic effect on the remaining population of bison: despite the creation of the Caucasian Reserve, despite the protection in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the herd of bison quickly melted away. The denouement came soon. “The last free bison of Belovezhskaya Pushcha was killed on February 9, 1921 by the former forest ranger of the Pushcha Bartolomeus Shpakovich: let his name, like the name of Herostratus, remain for centuries!” - wrote Erna More, a major German zoologist. The Caucasian bison also survived for a short time: in 1923 (according to other sources, in 1927) the last of them fell victim to poachers in the Tighinya tract. The bison as a species has ceased to exist in natural conditions.

Fortunately, a certain number of bison remained in zoos and private estates by this time. In 1923, the International Society for the Conservation of Bison was created. It carried out an inventory of the remaining bison: there were only 56 of them, of which 27 were males and 29 were females. The painstaking and laborious work to restore the population began, first in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in Poland, in zoos in Europe, and later in our country, in the Caucasus and in Askania-Nova. An international herd book was published, each animal was assigned a number. The Second World War interrupted this work, some of the animals died in a catastrophe that struck the world. However, after the end of the war, the struggle to save the bison resumed with renewed vigor. In 1946, bison were bred on the territory of Belovezhskaya Pushcha, which belonged to the Soviet Union (17 bison survived on the Polish territory by this time, which were collected in a special nursery). In 1948, the Central Bison Nursery was organized in the Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Reserve, where part of the bison was transferred to semi-free housing. From here, part of the breeding material was brought to other reserves in the country (Khopersky, Mordovsky, Oksky, etc.). In Belovezhskaya Pushcha and in the Caucasian Reserve, it became possible to transfer bison to free keeping, and the Caucasian herd now numbers about 700 heads (some of the animals, however, have a hybrid origin). In 1969, the total number of purebred bison in all reserves and nurseries of the world was more than 900 animals. Outside the protected areas, however, there is no bison anywhere.

Modern bison are real forest animals. However, they adhere to areas with glades, interspersed with small forests, wooded river valleys with flooded meadows, and in the mountains they prefer the upper forest belt on the border with subalpine meadows. Depending on the vegetation vegetation in summer and the state of the snow cover in winter, bison migrate seasonally, but their range is relatively small. They feed on herbaceous and tree-shrub (leaves, shoots, bark) vegetation, and the composition of their forage plants is wide (at least 400 species), in different habitats it is not the same and changes with the seasons. Almost everywhere in winter, bison use artificial feeding from hay, regularly go to salt licks. Bison graze in the morning and evening, going out to the meadows, and spend the middle of the day lying in the forest, chewing gum. In hot weather, bison go to the watering hole twice a day. They like to ride in dry, loose ground, but they don't take mud baths. Taking food from under the fine snow, bison make a hole in it with their muzzle; in deep snow, they often first break the snow with a hoof, and then deepen and widen the hole with the muzzle.

Despite its powerful constitution, the movements of the bison are light and fast. He gallops very quickly, easily overcomes a 2 m high fence, deftly and fearlessly moves along steep slopes. Of the senses, the most important are the sense of smell and hearing, which are well developed; vision is comparatively weak. The voice of a bison is a short, abrupt grunt, with irritation - a rumbling, with a fright - a snort. On the whole, bison are silent.

Like other bulls, bison live in small groups, which include females with calves and young people under the age of 3 or adult males. Older bulls are often solitary. In winter, groups gather in larger herds, sometimes up to 30-40 heads, but by spring such herds break up again.

Seeing a person or smelling him, bison usually quickly run away and hide in the thicket of the forest. When the wind blows from animals, they cannot smell the person and try to see it. Being short-sighted, like all forest animals, bison line up in one line with curved flanks, peering intently. This is often taken by people as preparation for an attack on a deployed front. However, soon the animals turn sharply and disappear into the forest.

The rut in bison in the past took place in August - the first half of September, but now, with semi-free maintenance and feeding, its clear seasonal timing has been disrupted. During the rutting season, adult bulls join herds of females, expelling adolescents over two years old from there, and guard the harem, which usually contains from 2 to 6 cows. Animals at this time are very excited, often fight among themselves. Fights between strong bulls are infrequent; in most cases, questions of leadership are resolved by demonstrating threatening postures, avoiding a fight, which is very dangerous given the gigantic strength of these animals. However, there are cases of real battles that end with a serious injury and even the death of one of the rivals. During the rut, the bulls hardly graze and lose a lot of weight; they give off a strong smell reminiscent of musky.

Bison pregnancy lasts 262-267 days. The cow leaves the herd shortly before calving, but usually not far. A newborn bison weighs 22-23 kg. An hour after giving birth, he is already on his feet, and another half hour later he can follow his mother. A cow with a calf joins the herd in a few days, when the calf is finally strong. Zubriha is constantly on the lookout for a small one and, seeing a person, arranges a demonstration of the attack. She swiftly rushes towards the enemy, but, not having reached a few meters, she stops rooted to the spot, and, turning abruptly, runs back to the calf. She feeds the calf with milk for up to 5 months, sometimes up to a year, but he begins to eat grass at the age of 19-22 days.

Adult bison have practically no natural enemies, although wolves can pose a danger to young people. Bison often died from epizootics brought in by livestock (foot and mouth disease, anthrax), from helminthiases and other diseases. They also endured heavy snowy winters, suffering greatly from lack of food. The longest life span of bulls, according to observations in nurseries, is 22 years, of cows - 27 years.

The bison is a wonderful natural monument, and its preservation is the duty of mankind, who has put the bison on the brink of destruction.

Buffalo(B. bison) - the closest relative of the bison - is common in North America. Outwardly, it is very similar to a bison, but more massive due to an even lower-set head and especially thick and long hair covering the head, neck, shoulders, hump and partly the front legs. The hair reaches a length of 50 cm and forms a continuous matted mane, almost covering the eyes and hanging from the chin and throat in the form of a shaggy long beard. The horns of the bison are short, shaped like the horns of a bison, but usually blunt. The tail is shorter than that of a bison. The weight of old bulls reaches 1000 kg, the height at the withers is up to 190 cm; cows are much smaller and lighter. The so-called forest bison, living in the north of the range, in the forest zone, are especially large and long-horned. They are allocated in subspecies V. b. athabascae.

The extermination of the buffalo also had another goal - to doom the Indian tribes to starvation, which offered fierce resistance to the newcomers. The goal was achieved. The winter of 1886/87 proved to be fatal for the Indians, she was incredibly hungry and claimed thousands of lives.

By 1889, it was all over. In the vast area, where herds of millions grazed, only 835 bison remained, including a herd of 200 heads that escaped in Yellowstone National Park.

And yet it was not too late. In December 1905, the American Bison Rescue Society was founded. Literally in the last days, in the last hours of the existence of bison, society has managed to turn the wheel of fortune. First in Oklahoma, then in Montana, Nebraska and Dakota, special reserves were established where the buffalo were safe. By 1910, the number of bison doubled, and after another 10 years there were about 9000 of them.

A movement to save the bison has also developed in Canada. In 1907, a herd of 709 heads was bought from private hands and moved to Wayne Wright (Alberta), in 1915 Wood Buffalo National Park was established for the few surviving forest bison, between Great Slave Lake and Lake Athabasca. Unfortunately, there in 1925-1928. brought in more than 6,000 steppe bison, which brought in tuberculosis, and most importantly, freely interbreeding with the forest bison, threatened to "swallow" it as an independent subspecies. Only in 1957, in the remote and inaccessible northwestern part of the park, a herd of purebred forest bison, numbering about 200 heads, was discovered. From this herd in 1963, 18 bison were caught and transported to a special reserve across the Mackensee River, near Fort Providence, where in 1969 there were about 30 of them. Another 43 forest bison were transported to Elk Island National Park, east of Edmonton.

Now in the national parks and reserves of Canada there are more than 20 thousand bison, of which about 230 are forest; in the USA - more than 10 thousand heads. Thus, the future of this species is almost unique among bulls! - does not inspire alarm.

It is difficult to talk about the way of life of bison in the past: it was exterminated before it was studied. It is only known that the bison made regular long-distance migrations, moving south for the winter, and migrating back to the north in the spring. Now bison cannot migrate: their range is limited to national parks, around which the lands of companies and farmers are spread. Various habitats are suitable for bison: open prairies, both flat and hilly, open woodlands, even more or less closed forests. They keep in small herds, bulls and cows separately, and groups of bulls number up to 10-12 heads, and cows with calves gather in groups of 20-30 animals. There are no permanent leaders in the herd, but the old female leads the herd while moving.

Steppe bison feed on grass, and forest bison, in addition to herbaceous vegetation, widely use leaves, shoots and branches of shrubs and trees for food. In winter, the main food is herbaceous rags, and in the forest - lichens, branches. Bison can feed with snow cover up to 1 m deep: first, they scatter snow with their hooves, and then, like bison, dig a hole with rotational movements of the head and muzzle. Once a day, bison visit watering places, and only in severe frosts, when thick ice completely covers the water, they eat snow. They usually graze in the morning and evening, but often during the day, as well as at night.

Of the senses, the sense of smell is best developed: bison sense danger at a distance of up to 2 km. They smell water even further, for 7-8 km. Their hearing and vision are somewhat weaker, but they cannot be called bad. Bison are very curious, especially calves: every new or unfamiliar object attracts their attention. An upright tail is a sign of arousal. Bison willingly ride, like bison, in dust and sand. The voice of the bison is often given: when the herd moves, grunting sounds of different tones are constantly heard; bulls emit a rolling roar during the rut, which in calm weather can be heard for 5-8 km. Such a roar sounds especially impressive when several bulls participate in the "concert".

Despite their mighty build, bison are exceptionally fast and agile. At a gallop, they easily reach speeds of up to 50 km / h: not every horse could compete with them in a race. Bison cannot be called aggressive, but, being driven into a dead end or wounded, he easily goes from flight to attack. He has practically no natural enemies among predators, and only calves and very old people become victims of wolves.

Bison rut begins in May and lasts until September. Bulls at this time are united with females in large herds, and a certain dominance hierarchy is observed in them. Fierce fights are frequent between the bulls, during which severe injuries and even death are frequent. At the end of the rut, the herds again break up into small groups. Pregnancy lasts, like bison, about 9 months. Usually, a cow seeks solitude at the onset of birth, but sometimes gives birth to a calf right among the herd. Then all the tribesmen crowd around the newborn, sniff it and lick it. The calf suckles its mother for about a year.

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- (Bovidae) ** * * The family of bovids, or bovines, is the most extensive and diverse group of artiodactyls, including 45 50 modern genera and about 130 species. Bovids constitute a natural, well-defined group. No matter how ... ... the life of animals

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A buffalo is a large-sized animal, its weight can reach more than 1000 kg, but not everyone has such a mass. Speaking of height, on average this indicator ranges from 1 to 1.5 m, while the limbs of the buffalo are not long, but powerful. Naturally, deviations from the average are permissible, depending on the breed and habitat of the animal.

Interesting fact that, the older the buffalo, the more mass it manages to gain. Males are traditionally more massive, they are heavier than females, which allows them to fight for themselves and their herd. The female weighs on average up to 600 kg, although some endemic species such as anoa barely reach 300 kg.

A characteristic feature of buffaloes is the presence of horns. The most common breed - the African buffalo - has horns that are not too large, but at the same time they are directed in different directions and have bends. Outwardly, the place of fusion of the horns with the skull resembles a kind of helmet. There are also species of animals, such as the Indian buffalo, whose horns reach record heights: about 2 meters in length. At the same time, they are not directed upwards, but also grow to the side, turning back at the end. There are also hornless animals, but this is a rather rare occurrence.

Where do buffaloes live?

Buffalo is an animal that belongs to the genus of bulls, but with a peculiarity: their horns are hollow. It is worth saying that in Russia or Ukraine, it is rare to meet one individual, and even more so a family of buffaloes. This is due to the fact that the natural habitat of a bovine animal is a country with a hot climate, where there are no such harsh winters.

Currently, there are four subspecies of this animal:

• Tamarow.
• Endemic anoa or dwarf (small, small).
• Asian (another name for Indian), common on the Sulawesi islands.
• African buffalo (native to Africa and is the most common).

Naturally, the habitat will influence the wild animal, it will be most adapted to its native climate.

However, at present, the animal is protected by the law of many states, since their number is massively declining. Some species, such as anoa, are forced to be included in the Red Book, as the species is on the verge of extinction. Some associate this with global warming, while others see the reason for the fact that these animals are hunted and poached.

African buffalo

The African buffalo, or black buffalo (Latin Syncerus caffer) is a species of bulls widespread in Africa. Being a typical representative of the subfamily of bulls, the African buffalo, however, is quite peculiar and stands out as a separate genus Syncerus with only one species (it is also the only subfamily of bulls that lives in Africa).

Appearance

To feel all the power and greatness of the African buffalo, just one look at it is enough. Judge for yourself: its height reaches two meters, and its length is three and a half. The weight of an adult male is about a ton, and the greatest threat is not the horns (which reach a meter in length), but the hooves. The forefoot looks more massive and has a larger hoof area than the hindquarters. It is for this reason that a meeting with an African buffalo rushing at high speed becomes the last one for the victim.

The most striking representative of the five subspecies of African giants is the Kaffir buffalo. He is much larger than his fellows and almost completely corresponds to the above description. It has a very formidable disposition, as if warned by the black color of the coat.

Habitat and lifestyle

Already from the name of the animals it is clear that they live on the African continent. But it is impossible to clearly define the territory that African bulls prefer. They can live equally well in forests, savannas and mountains. The main requirement for the area is the proximity of the water. It is in the savannas that the Kaffir, Senegalese and Nile buffaloes prefer to stay.

In their natural environment, large colonies of African buffaloes can only be found in protected areas far from people. Animals do not trust them very much and try to avoid in every possible way, like any other threat. In this they are largely helped by their excellent sense of smell and hearing, which cannot be said about vision, which can hardly be called ideal. Females with young offspring behave especially carefully.

The organization of the herd and the hierarchy in it deserves special attention. At the slightest danger, the calves move into the depths of the herd, and the most adult and experienced ones cover them, forming a dense shield. They communicate with each other through special signals and clearly define their further actions. In total, the herd can number from 20 to 30 individuals of different ages.

Human use

Despite the fact that African buffaloes represent a great danger and are very reluctant to make contact with people, the latter still managed to tame the giants and successfully use them in the household. The tribes use these animals as a pulling force, cultivating large areas for crops of cereals and other crops.

Also African buffaloes are irreplaceable as cattle. They are raised for meat, and they do not always wait until the calf reaches its maximum weight. Females produce excellent quality milk containing a large amount of fat. It is used to make hard and soft cheese, similar to feta cheese, and drink just like that.

After the slaughter of African buffaloes, in addition to meat, a lot of useful things also remain. For example, the hide can be used as bedding, decoration, or used for sewing clothes. Now the interior is decorated with massive horns, and earlier they were used to make primitive tools for cultivating the garden. Even bones are used - burned in the oven and ground, they are used as fertilizer and feed additive for other pets.

Population status and threats

The African buffalo did not escape the common fate of large African ungulates, which were severely knocked out in the 19th - first half of the 20th centuries due to uncontrolled shooting. However, the number of buffaloes suffered significantly less than, for example, elephants - perhaps because, given the difficulty and danger of hunting, the buffalo is not of commercial value (unlike the same elephant with valuable tusks or a rhinoceros with a valuable horn). Therefore, the number of buffaloes remained quite high. Much greater devastation among buffaloes was caused by epizootics of rinderpest, introduced to Africa at the end of the 19th century with the cattle of white settlers. The first outbreaks of this disease among buffaloes were noted in 1890.

At present, the buffalo, although it has disappeared in many places of its former habitat, is still numerous in some places. The total number of buffaloes of all subspecies in Africa is estimated at about a million. The state of the population, according to the estimates of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, “is under a small threat, but depends on conservation measures” (English. Lower risk, conservation dependent).

Protected areas in several places in Africa are home to stable and resilient buffalo populations. There are many buffaloes in such famous reserves as the Serengeti and Ngorongoro (Tanzania) and the National Park. Kruger (South Africa). Large herds of buffaloes are found in Zambia, in reserves in the Luangwa Valley.

Outside of nature reserves, the greatest threat to the buffalo is habitat destruction. Buffaloes do not tolerate the cultural landscape at all and try to stay away from agricultural land, so plowing and land development, which is inevitable with the constant growth of the African population, has an extremely negative effect on the number of buffaloes.

Many buffaloes are kept in zoos all over the world. They breed well in captivity, but their maintenance is quite difficult - buffaloes in the zoo are sometimes very aggressive. There have been cases of fatal buffalo fighting in the zoo.

Asiatic buffalo

The Asian buffalo, or the Indian buffalo (Latin Bubalus arnee) is a cloven-hoofed mammal from the bovid family. One of the largest bulls. Adults reach a length of over 3 meters. The height at the withers reaches 2 m, and the weight can reach 1000 kg, in some cases up to 1200, on average, an adult male weighs about 900 kg. The horns reach up to 2 m, they are directed to the sides and back and have a crescent shape and a flattened section. Cows have little or no horns.

Description of appearance

Despite the fact that the species of Indian buffaloes includes at least 6 subspecies, they all share similar features in appearance. One of them is horns. Long, growing slightly backward, they gently curve upward and represent a serious weapon, equally dangerous for predators and humans, as well as for other animals.

In Indian buffalo cows, the horns are not as prominent as in bulls, they differ in shape - they are not curved, but straight. Sexual dimorphism is also manifested in size indicators - the females are much smaller.

The Indian bull, with the exception of the dwarf variety, reaches a height of about 2 meters. Adult buffaloes weigh up to 900 kg on average. There are some individuals weighing up to 1200 kg. The barrel-shaped body is about 3-4 meters long. Compared to other buffaloes, Indian bulls have relatively high legs. Representatives of the species have a long (up to 90 cm), massive tail.

In addition to the large size of the body, nature has awarded the Indian buffaloes with a decent long life, up to 26 years in natural conditions.

Range and problems of species conservation

Wild Asian buffaloes are found in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, as well as Ceylon. Back in the middle of the 20th century, buffaloes were found in Malaysia, but now, apparently, there are no wild animals left there. On the island of Mindoro (Philippines) in a special reserve Iglit lived a special, dwarf subspecies called tamarau (B. b. Mindorensis). This subspecies has apparently become extinct.

But the historical habitat of the buffalo is huge. At the beginning of the first millennium A.D. NS. the Indian buffalo was found in a vast territory from Mesopotamia to southern China.

In most places, buffaloes now live in strictly protected areas, where they are accustomed to humans and are no longer wild in the strict sense of the word. The Indian buffalo was also introduced to Australia in the 19th century and spread widely in the north of the continent.

In Asian countries, the range and number of the Indian buffalo is constantly decreasing. The main reason for this is not hunting, which, as a rule, is limited and conducted according to strict quotas, but the destruction of the habitat, plowing and settlement of wilderness areas. The places where the wild buffalo can live in the natural environment is becoming less and less. In fact, now in India and Sri Lanka, the range of the wild buffalo is completely tied to national parks (the famous Kaziranga National Park in the Indian state of Assam has a herd of more than a thousand buffaloes). The situation in Nepal and Bhutan is not much better.

Another serious problem is the constant crossing of wild buffaloes with domestic ones, due to which the wild species gradually loses its blood purity. It is extremely difficult to avoid this due to the fact that almost everywhere wild buffaloes have to live in the neighborhood with people and, accordingly, domestic buffaloes kept on free grazing.

Lifestyle and behavior

For Indian buffaloes, a gregarious lifestyle is characteristic. Small groups are formed from the leader - the oldest bull, several young males, as well as calves and cows. When a threat appears, the herd tries to get away from pursuers as soon as possible. However, then the animals regroup and wait for enemies for a frontal attack, often on their own tracks. In any situation, older animals try to protect the young.

The Indian buffalo in nature associates its life with stagnant water: lakes or swamps, in extreme cases, he agrees to rivers with a slow current.

At the same time, Indian bulls themselves are one of the irreplaceable sources of reproduction of natural resources. The manure they produce contributes to the replenishment of nutrients and supports the intensive growth of green mass.

Small island buffalo

In the Philippines, or rather, on the small island of Mindoro, a small dwarf buffalo tamarou lives. Its height is only 110 cm, the body length is 2-3 meters, and its weight is 180-300 kg. In appearance, he looks more like an antelope than a buffalo. The horns of the tamarou buffalo are flat, curved back, each about 40 cm long. They form a triangle at the base. Wool is liquid, black or chocolate shade, sometimes it is gray.

Even 100-150 years ago, the places where the tamarou buffalo lives were sparsely populated. On the island of Mindoro, there was a very dangerous strain of malaria, they were afraid to master it. Animals could safely walk through the tropical thickets, without fear, because there are no large predators on the island, and tamarou is the largest species there. But they learned to fight malaria, the island began to be actively populated, which led to a sharp decline in the population. Now in the world there are no more than 100-200 individuals of this species, it is listed in the Red Book.

Another small buffalo lives on the island of Sulawesi. It is called anoa and is even smaller than tamarou. The growth of the anoa is only 80 cm, and the body length is 160 cm. Females weigh about 150 kg, males reach 300 kg. There is almost no hair on their body, the skin color is black. Calves are born almost red. There are two varieties of this buffalo: mountain and lowland anoa buffalo. Plains anoa have straight horns with a triangular cut, about 25 cm long. In mountain anoas, they are twisted and round.

The small island buffalo has a lifespan of about 20 years, which is significantly longer than that of other species. Nowadays, anoa are extremely rare. Despite the fact that they are protected in Indonesia, the animals often fall prey to poachers. Wherever a person appears, active development of the territory begins.

Sulawesi is one of the most densely populated islands, so there is less and less space for anoa, which does not have the best effect on the population. Perhaps, soon this view can be seen only in photos and videos.

Number

Until the 19th century, a dwarf wild buffalo from the island of Sulawesi densely inhabited the territory. However, with the growth of agriculture, bulls began to leave coastal areas, moving away from people. The dwarf animals have chosen mountain regions as their new habitat.

Before World War II, the number of buffaloes was significant. Hunting rules protected the species from destruction, and the locals rarely killed anoa. The situation changed dramatically after World War II.

The local population acquired more serious firearms. Now hunting for anoa has become available to them. Hunting rules were constantly violated, and the reserves built to protect buffaloes were abandoned.

Due to the fearfulness of animals, it is not possible to thoroughly study the species. Both species are known to be on the verge of extinction. The exact number of wild buffaloes is unknown. There are much more mountain individuals in nature, thanks to the mountains in which you can hide from danger. Plains are susceptible to attacks by predators and local residents, so their numbers are constantly decreasing.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature records the number of animals living in captivity in the herd book. This allows for a minimal stock of small bulls.

Domestic bulls

The Indian buffalo was domesticated several thousand years ago. Images of animals similar to buffaloes can be found both on ancient Greek vases and on Sumerian tiles. Distributed throughout the southern territory of the Eurasian continent, bulls are still preserved as livestock in southern Europe and Southeast Asia. They were brought to Hawaii, Japan, and Latin America.

A local breed originating from Indian wild bulls has long been inhabited on the territory of the Caucasian region. Currently, breeding work is being carried out to improve local animals: to increase the meat yield and increase the milk quality of buffaloes. Traditionally, the population produced gatyg or yogut, kaymag (specially processed heavy cream) and ayran from milk. Currently, industrial recipes are being developed for making different types of cheese, because it is known that Italian mozzarella is made from buffalo milk according to the original recipe.

Domestic bulls are common in Bulgaria (Indo-Bulgarian breeding group), and in Italy and the Balkan region. They are bred in Transcarpathia and Lviv region (Ukraine). Both meat and buffalo milk are valuable food products.

In India, where the meat of ordinary cows is considered forbidden, domestic buffaloes are the source of this protein food. Domesticated bulls are not banned and are bred as both dairy and beef cattle. In Southeast Asia and Latin America, powerful, hardy animals are the best pulling power. With the help of bulls, people cultivate rice fields, harnessing the buffalo to primitive plows and harrows. In mountainous or swampy areas where horses cannot work, a variety of goods are transported on them.

Domestic animals very often independently interbreed with wild buffaloes, violating the purity of the latter's blood. Already rare, wild bulls lose their biological exclusivity, giving birth to offspring with a mixed genotype. Thoroughbred wild bulls are only about 1 thousand heads.

Buffalo productivity

In almost all main indicators of productivity, buffaloes are significantly inferior to ordinary cows. So, the slaughter yield usually does not exceed 47%, while in ordinary cattle this figure ranges from 50-60%. At the same time, the characteristics of the meat are very mediocre, to say the least.

The meat of adult buffaloes is quite tough and, moreover, gives off a strong musk, therefore, it cannot be used for food like ordinary beef. It must either be deeply processed (for example, to make sausages), or be fed to other animals (for example, to make dog food). But the meat of the young is more or less similar to beef, although it is noticeably inferior to it in taste. By the way, wild buffaloes in Africa and Australia are objects of sport hunting, but their meat also has no special value.

Average milk yield is also not particularly encouraging - 1400-1700 liters per lactation, which is 2-3 times lower than that of ordinary meat and dairy cows (not to mention purely dairy breeds). However, buffaloes have the advantage that their milk is very fatty. While regular cow's milk contains 2 to 4% fat, buffalo milk contains 8%. In fact, the buffaloes do not even give milk, but low-fat cream.

Buffalo skins are of some value. The average weight of raw hides from one animal is 25-30 kg with an average thickness of about 7 mm.

Features of keeping buffaloes

According to the conditions of detention, the Asian black buffalo is as close as possible to an ordinary cow. He grazes on the same pastures, lives in an ordinary cowshed, and generally differs little from a cow. At the same time, among pastoralists, there were two diametrically opposite opinions regarding the nature of buffaloes.

Both the Indonesian dwarf buffalo and the domesticated Indian eagerly eat the coarsest and most low-value feeds, which are usually unsuitable for cows. For example, these animals can be fed with straw and corn stalks. In addition, we recall that domestic buffaloes are called "river type". They can be safely grazed in swampy and forested pastures where normal cows are not grazed. Buffaloes are very fond of coastal vegetation (reeds, sedges), and also eat nettles, ferns and even pine needles without any problems.

In swampy areas, where it is problematic to breed regular cattle, buffaloes feel very comfortable. Moreover, if there is at least a small reservoir nearby, they will willingly swim in it in the summer heat.

It is believed that buffaloes tolerate cold well, however, given the southern origin of this species, this should not be abused. In regions with cold winters, animals definitely need a warm capital barn.

Advantages and disadvantages of buffalo

Traditionally, the term "cattle" refers to ordinary cows and bulls, but the domesticated buffalo also belongs to this category of farm animals. And since it is cows that are the main representative of this group, it makes sense to compare the advantages and disadvantages of buffaloes in relation to them.

The clear advantages are:

1. High fat content of milk. The fat content averages just over 8%, and if certain feeding rules are followed, this figure can be easily increased to 10% or more. Thus, buffalo milk is an ideal raw material for the production of butter and cheese. If for the production of 1 kg of butter 30-35 liters of cow's milk is needed, then only 10-15 liters of buffalo milk are needed. Thus, the low milk yield of buffaloes is fully compensated.
2. Undemanding to feed. Cheap coarse fodder, which is not suitable for cows, buffaloes eat with great pleasure, which significantly reduces the cost of their maintenance. Especially in the winter.
3. Good health. Buffaloes are much less susceptible to infectious diseases of cattle. In addition, they can live in humid hot climates, making them the preferred cattle species in swampy areas. Especially in the south of the country.

However, the significantly greater popularity of cows in Russia has quite objective reasons.

Buffaloes have a number of significant disadvantages, due to which the vast majority of farmers prefer cows:

1. Small milk yield. Under similar conditions of keeping and feeding, buffaloes give milk 2-3 times less than meat and dairy breeds of cows, and 4-6 times less than dairy breeds.
2. Unpalatable meat. Although over the past decades, breeders have developed new breeds of buffalo, which have significantly improved the flavor characteristics of meat, beef is still much tastier.
3. Complex nature. According to the reviews of many cattle breeders who had experience in breeding buffaloes, these animals are still more capricious and capricious than cows.

Notable facts

• The famous Italian mozzarella cheese is made from buffalo milk according to the correct recipe.
• In India, where the cow is a sacred animal for the majority of the population and is not subject to slaughter for meat, however, beef and veal can often be found on sale. This paradox is explained by the fact that the religious prohibition does not apply to buffalo, therefore, under the name beef is sold nothing more than buffalo meat. It tastes different from real beef, and buffalo is much tougher than beef.
• In a number of places in Southeast Asia (some areas of Vietnam, Thailand, Laos), domestic buffalo fights are among the favorite folk amusements.
• The tallest buffaloes are prepared for competitions for a long time, trained and fattened in a special way.
• Buffalo fight occurs without human participation - the bulls are brought to the site one against the other and butt until one escapes from the battlefield or shows undoubted signs of defeat (for example, falls at the feet of the winner). The fight is very rarely bloody - usually buffaloes do not inflict any serious damage on each other. In recent decades, buffalo fights have also become a popular sight for tourists.

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