Bubalus bubalis: A Short Story.

Marco Zava,Domenico Vecchio,Antonio Borghese,Antonio Humberto Hamad Minervino

doi:10.3389/fvets.2020.570413

Marco Zava, Domenico Vecchio + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.570413

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Abstract

The domestic buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), also known as water buffalo or Asian buffalo to prevent confusion with the American bison (Bison bison), wrongly named buffalo in North America, comprises two subspecies: the river buffalo (B. bubalis bubalis) and the swamp buffalo (B. bubalis kerebau). The swamp buffalo has a consistent phenotype and is considered as one type, even if many breeds are recognized within it; conversely, the river buffalo subspecies has many breeds. We found limited information available regarding the worldwide distribution of buffaloes. The best estimate is that 208,098,759 buffalo head are distributed in 77 countries in five continents. In this review, we presented the basic aspects of the water buffalo and unraveled the buffalo path followed from the origin of the species to its current global distribution. We reviewed several data sources to provide a better estimate of the world buffalo count and distribution.

Highlights

Reviewed by: Saket Kumar Niranjan, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), India Rostam Abdollahi-Arpanahi, University of Florida, United States
The anoa was divided in B. depressicornis and B. quarlesi based on the environment it inhabited
Murrah buffaloes were exported to China and Indonesia to increase milk availability, as the local breeds are of the swamp type with low milk production capacities; the same applies for many Asian countries, in which the original buffalo population is of the swamp type [19, 37]

Summary

Introduction

Reviewed by: Saket Kumar Niranjan, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), India Rostam Abdollahi-Arpanahi, University of Florida, United States. There are three international river breeds that are widely distributed worldwide, owing to their high genetic potential for milk production: Murrah, Nili-Ravi, and the Italian Mediterranean [36].

Results

Conclusion