I see some water buffalo have short curved horns while others have long straight horns, what is the difference the location they are in or just random when they are born?

The differences are genetic, not environmental - the genetics of the buffalo in australia appears quite diverse, although never really tested. In my experience - yes there is some geographic differences between the different horn shapes - the wider, straight (but generally lower scoring) bulls are more frequent in the interior, central Arnhem Land, while the big crescent shape bulls that tend to protect their tips from excessive rubbing, more prevalent on the coast of Arnhem. Those coastal animals also seem to be a little larger in body mass. Outside Arnhem it is much more of a mixture but definitely tending to the smaller body size.

The horns of the curved (crescent) animals are not shorter - the longest horns are often of theis shape. You may have seen some short stumpy curved horns and yes they do occur of course (they are the animals we would be culling!).

Both types are well overlapped, so you do find examples of both in all areas - this geographic distribution is just an observation. There is no explanation for it that I can see... except that certain types were isolated during the heavy culling of the 80s and early 90's. There is no reason why the crescent-shaped bulls would do better on the coast from what I can see.

The two horn shapes are not always distinct either - there are every shape in between them.

Wide "sweeper" bulls...





Crescent bulls...

Interesting Matt.


I wonder whether the OP when asking about the "short curved horns" was not talking about those water buffalo found in South America ?
I think - well not Australia anyway.

I really love the long sweeping horns.

Steel

So do I.

I prefer Sweepers to crescent.

quote:

Originally posted by 505G:
Interesting Matt.


I wonder whether the OP when asking about the "short curved horns" was not talking about those water buffalo found in South America ?
I think - well not Australia anyway.

maybe - I didnt think of that!!

Steel - were you comparing our buffalo to the ones in South America?... like this



We dont have any of these buffalo in the wild here... only a few in captive breeding programs.

yea thats the one i was thinking of

Yeah mate - we don't really have them here at all. You would think that considering the genetic diversity we do have in our wild herds that you would see examples of this type but we just dont.

This type is the one of the varieties or sub species of essentially the same animal we have here Bubalus bubalis - of which there are some thirty known varieties. It is derived from what is now called the Murrah buffalo ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murrah_buffalo ). This type I believe came from India to Europe, where it was further developed for milk production (they still use them in Italy (and elsewhere) for producing mozarella cheese) - then the Europeans bought them to South America where some have become wild.

I have seen them in several parts of Argentina, heaps of them about, strangely, normally close to water.

quote:

Originally posted by Bulltahr:
I have seen them in several parts of Argentina, heaps of them about, strangely, normally close to water.

People ask me all the time ..."do you find them in the water?"

Gents,for as long as can remember my instincts have been those of a hunter, long before i even knew what a hunter was.

As a child the highlight of my day was to climb onto the windows onto the back of our Bungalow to watch the herdsman bring the buffalo to wallow, they would wade out to the deepest part of the pond and spend hours in it.Even back then i use to pik out the male in the herd to take pot shots with my catapult.
One of my chores was to fetch raw milk from the stables, this was a place that had hundreds of buffalo cows tethered under shelter,(no free range paddocks) which were milked daily.To keep the herd serviced and in milk were the bulls which received special treatment, and even in those filthy and depressing environs were awe inspiring to look at.

The buffalo with curved horns look like the buffalo native to the state of Gujarat which were locally called 'Kathiawaris' and no big deal, there were a few around the place that were s'posed to be from Assam and sported the long crescent horns, which were bigger in size and the subject of observation before girls became of interest.

Buffaloes were inseparable from water.

There is a reason why they call them water buffalo. I would call them semi-aquatic as just like moose they will go completely under the surface. According to Rowland-Ward there are two main types; the "river" subspecies that occupies Pakistan thru India and the "marsh" subspecies that occupies Southeast Asia with a mixture in between. The "marsh" type have the sweeping horns and that's what is found in Australia. The "river" type have the tightly up curved horns like in cape buffalo but without the horned boss. However, they do have the big domed skull just like what is found under the boss of the cape buffalo.

P.S. I have always wondered if there was originally only one buffalo species originating in Africa as the cape buffalo and as they migrated eastward through southern Asia were separated by the Sahara becoming desert and southern Asia becoming much wetter than it is even now had to adapt and change some to survive the envirnment. That big domed skull and cape buff like horns without the boss of the "river" type and then losing the domed skull and tightly up curved horns to a rather flat skull and sweeper horns like what the "marsh" type have as they migrated into south east Asia.

Genetic scientist say that jaguars are just leopards separated by the eons when South America separated from Africa and had to change some to survive a much wetter climate. I believe lions are just leopards that were forced to change to survive a grassland ecosystem. Likewise, scientist say polar bears are just brown bears that were separated by glacial ice and had to change to survive the artic. American elk, european red tag and Japanese sika deer are really the same species only changing once they were separated.

376 Steyr

Asiatic buffalo and cape buffalo can occupy exactly the same terrain and ecological niche - you see Asiatic herds living in very tough semi-arid parts of Australia and Cape buffalo living in wet-land deltas. They are synonymous in that respect.

Where (one of the places) they are different is genetically - and they more likely had a common ancestor, although I am not aware where that ancestor lived?

Same deal with the cats and deer you mentioned. Common ancestor is what creates this diversity.

Matt

Time to bring some Cape Buff and other African animals to Australia.

To revive this thread a bit:

Matt:
How about some info on those "round" horned bulls in your part of the world. I've seen some of them that are impressive too. Scrub bulls as I think they're called.
Whole different species, right?

Which are the biggest? Nastiest attitudes?
Sure wish my health was better I'd love to make the trip over there for a couple months hunting, even on a cull of any kind would be great. I had an offer to spend 3 months with Sambar02 before he died last yr. Great man, major loss to many.

Thanks much,
George

George

Scrub Bulls are wild cattle, often born and bred outside of any stock program (Like you have on a station, rounded up, branded etc).

So wild as wild can be.

They are fiesty buggers IMHO and I reckon
you need to be more careful around them
than Buffalo.

One herd of Scrub Bulls - scrubbers - has a
real mixture in it - Reds, Whites, Blacks,
Piebald, Roan and often some mix of Brahman
in them (Brahman having the hump).

Have a look at this google page.
http://www.google.com.au/searc...GICg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ

quote:

Originally posted by 505G:
Matt

Time to bring some Cape Buff and other African animals to Australia.

Cape buffalo, zebra and various African antelope have been bought to Australia in private collections. I dont know what became of the Capes but most of the antelope do not do very well in the 'wild'. Most died. There are some eland, lechwe and scimitar oryx surviving in a certain game ranch however.

George - the scrub bulls are good value as Nigel said. Its a toss-up what is more nasty... the scrub bull or the banteng. I'd pick the banteng.

Here is a bit of a thing about scrub bulls I did for DSC
http://gametrails.org/scrub-bu...-northern-territory/

Anyone ever stick a spear in one?

In a scrub bull? Not that I know of ('cept for locals)... do you want to be the first?

Maybe.

You are game !!!

Have samburu, will travel. Or was it Sambuca.

Who will be your guide?

Someone wearing leg-irons and a V.C. duct-taped into his hands? Some minor details might have to be worked out. Maybe the cook, but anyone I can outrun would work.

quote:

Originally posted by Dogleg:
Maybe the cook, but anyone I can outrun would work.

Ah, at least you have one of the important bits
learn't already

When working out problems, usually the simplest solutions are best.

The wb`s I saw in Vietnam over the last fortnight were all the wide sweeper types.Never saw a crescent style.

In my previous posts I reffered to the southeast asian type water buff with the sweeper horns as the "marsh" subspecies when I should have said they were the "swamp" subspecies according to Rowland-Ward. There is no "marsh" subspecies. Sorry for the error.

Hey you Aussies. How come you don't have any gaurs.
That would be awesome. Reports say, plenty of them in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam...
Anyone ever thought of that? Read enough about them that I think they would be almost as challenging as Cape buffs
Just a thought to stir the pot gents.

quote:

Originally posted by Matt Graham:

quote:

Originally posted by 505G:
Interesting Matt.


I wonder whether the OP when asking about the "short curved horns" was not talking about those water buffalo found in South America ?
I think - well not Australia anyway.

maybe - I didnt think of that!!

Steel - were you comparing our buffalo to the ones in South America?... like this



We dont have any of these buffalo in the wild here... only a few in captive breeding programs.

We have this type in the USA as well, and here they are called Philippine water buffalo. One ranch I know of in Texas that has the sweepers like those in OZ is Camp Cooley ranch near Ridge, Texas. Most of the rest in Texas are the same as those in South America.

Like most, I prefer the sweepers of Australia!

boar killer

I would love Gaur in this country,
I very much doubt it will happen,
at least not in the wild.

Guys, thanks for the replies to my comments and questions. Here's some amusing true tales you might get a kick out of reading about. Just picture things as I explain 'em, hope you enjoy the read.

Far as brahma's go, when I was a wild assed teen wannabe cowboy. Dad & a buddy bought 21 head of brahma roping calves that had outgrown the city dude cowboys. All heifers except one bull and we ate him the next fall when he was big enough.

We all got quite an education raising those sob's (I mean: Sacred cattle!). A few would eat cake out of a bucket you were holding. Three or four others we had to carry a club at all times and watch each other's back. Had one charge shoulder deep thru an inch thick oak board barn wall trying to get a buddy that was along one morning when I stopped to feed her and a calf on the way to school. Bill p'd his panties and had to go back home to change! Honest!

One black cow had a lightning slash across her face. She was as evil a cow as I've ever seen. Called her Old Slash. She laid with her ass end under a gate and had a calf, it didn't suck. She wouldn't accept it. So twice a day we roped and stretched her out between barn posts until she tipped over then we milked her into a qt jar from the back side and fed the calf. That's just one of the problems we had to overcome dealing with those fence jumping sob's.

Soon as they got big enough, us teen boys found a guy with a rodeo arena and rode 'em most weekends in the summer for about 4-5 yrs. The yellow cow went out the back of the chute wall, double 2"x8" oak planks when one of us was getting ready to ride "at her" again. She jumped clear over the front seat of a full sized Buick convertible with a couple sitting in it. The chase was on, she'd hop a fence and wait til someone rode clear around to a gate and back to where she was, then either hop back over, or over the next fence further away.
Another time out in a wide open pasture, Dad roped her when she was around 1800#'s. Had a brand new half inch nylon rope. He got off when she stopped and just stood staring at him and the horse. Pretty soon she charged right straight at 'em, at the last second she turned enough to miss and ran full speed past and hit the end of the rope and snapped it like glass almost jerking the horse on her ass end. You ever want an education with cattle, buy a bunch of those things.

He also had a Charlais bull that stood nearly 7' at the whithers with a bad attitude. I never knew much about him except he was so much bigger than anything I'd ever been around. One day wife & I went out and found Dad trying to move the herd alone. So I got out, and he said to: "get that white bull." He was in a small patch of knocked down small tree's about 4-6" dia. When I walked up facing him about 6' away and logs crossways over my knee's. The bull lowered his head and growled at me. What got into me I have no clues even yet. But, grabbed my ball cap off my head and threw it hard as I could and hit him between the eye's. Wife said she heard it pop from around 50yds away.
The amazing thing was the bull reared up and spun around, ran right out and down the road past Dad and the herd. Here's the funny part of it. When we got to the corral most of a mile down the road. Dad told me: "Watch that white bull, he'll take you!" "now you tell me!!" The next week he dressed out 1800# w/guts n hide off. As I recall it, his head was at least the size of a full grown moose.(18: wide, 3' long) Like they say: "the one with the biggest bluff wins", I reckon that's right as it sure worked that day. Though I'd sure never have gone in there after him if Dad had told me that before. Talk about ignorance and the fools getting lucky.

Hell no, I'd never try to pull something like that in OZ with those bulls no matter what breed they might be. I know better now.
(hope some of you got at least a smile out of this)
George