Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Artiodactyla > Bovidae > Syncerus > Syncerus caffer

Syncerus caffer (African buffalo; Cape buffalo)

Synonyms: Bos caffer (homotypic)

Wikipedia Abstract

The African buffalo or Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the slightly larger wild water buffalo of Asia and its ancestry remains unclear. Syncerus caffer caffer, the Cape buffalo, is the typical subspecies, and the largest one, found in South and East Africa. S. c. nanus (African forest buffalo) is the smallest subspecies, common in forest areas of Central and West Africa, while S. c. brachyceros is in West Africa and S. c. aequinoctialis is in the savannas of Central Africa. The adult buffalo's horns are its characteristic feature; they have fused bases, forming a continuous bone shield referred to as a "boss". They are widely regarded as very dangerous animals, as they gore and kill over 200 people every year.
View Wikipedia Record: Syncerus caffer

Infraspecies

Syncerus caffer aequinoctialis
Syncerus caffer brachyceros
Syncerus caffer caffer
Syncerus caffer matthewsi
Syncerus caffer nanus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
6
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
30
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 13.96
EDGE Score: 2.71
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  1,543.244 lbs (700.00 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  97.004 lbs (44.00 kg)
Diet [2]  Herbivore
Diet - Plants [2]  100 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  4 years
Male Maturity [1]  4 years 7 months
Gestation [1]  11 months 1 day
Litter Size [1]  1
Litters / Year [1]  0.4
Maximum Longevity [1]  30 years
Snout to Vent Length [3]  9.709 feet (296 cm)
Weaning [1]  9 months 19 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania No
Eastern Afromontane Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe No
Guinean Forests of West Africa Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Togo No
Horn of Africa Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Oman, Somalia, Yemen No
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Crocuta crocuta (Spotted Hyena)[5]
Panthera leo (Lion)[6]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 4Forage selection by African buffalo in the late dry season in two landscapes, Valerio A. Macandza, Norman Owen-Smith & Paul C. Cross, South African Journal of Wildlife Research 34(2): 113–121 (October 2004)
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Predator–prey size relationships in an African large-mammal food web, Norman Owen-Smith and M. G. L. Mills, Journal of Animal Ecology Volume 77, Issue 1, Pages 173-183
♦ 7Nunn, C. L., and S. Altizer. 2005. The Global Mammal Parasite Database: An Online Resource for Infectious Disease Records in Wild Primates. Evolutionary Anthroplogy 14:1-2.
♦ 8Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0