Water buffalo
Bubalus bubalis (Linnaeus, 1758)
Status not recordedmammals
The water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a living mammal in the family Bovidae, subfamily Bovinae and tribe Bovini, within the order Artiodactyla. It falls in the giant size class, with a representative adult body mass of 431.2 kg and a highest reported value of 827.3 kg.
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Quick facts about the water buffalo
The water buffalo is a terrestrial, cathemeral herbivore. Gestation lasts from 310 to 330 days, with 1 litter per year, and sexual maturity is reached at 1.5 years; checklists record it in Australia.
- Weight
- 431.2 kg – 827.3 kgsrc for Weight
- Length
- Not recorded
- Lifespan
- 31.9 years – 34.9 yearssrc for Lifespan
- Diet
- Herbivoresrc for Diet
- Main food
- Not recorded
- Habitat
- Not recorded
- Gestation
- 310 days – 330 dayssrc for Gestation
- Young per litter or clutch
- 1.38src for Young per litter or clutch
- Age at maturity
- 18.2 monthssrc for Age at maturity
- Litters or clutches a year
- 1src for Litters or clutches a year
- Active
- Day and night (cathemeral)src for Active
- Lifestyle
- Terrestrialsrc for Lifestyle
- Conservation status
- Not recorded
- Countries on record
- 1 countrysrc for Countries on record
Photos of the water buffalo
Only freely licensed photos are shown. Each carries its creator and licence.
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Where does the water buffalo live?
Countries where Catalogue of Life checklists list the species. Many checklists carry no country data, so the list is often incomplete. It is not a range map.
The water buffalo is listed for 1 country.
- Listed
- Not listed
The same countries as a list
Listed by: ITIS (scope: global), through the Catalogue of Life.
What is the water buffalo?
The water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), also called domestic water buffalo, Asian water buffalo, and Asiatic water buffalo, is a large domesticated bovine originating in South and Southeast Asia descended from the wild water buffalo. Today, it is also kept in regions including Italy, the Balkans, Australia, the Americas, and parts of Africa. Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria: the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy; and the swamp buffalo from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze Valley of China in the east.
The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) is most probably the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that the river-type water buffalo probably originated in western India and was domesticated about 6,300 years ago, whereas the swamp-type originated independently from Mainland Southeast Asia and was domesticated about 3,000 to 7,000 years ago. Subsequently, the river buffalo dispersed west as far as Egypt, the Balkans, and Italy; while swamp buffalo dispersed to the rest of Southeast Asia and up to the Yangtze Valley.
Water buffaloes were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, in 2500 BC by the Meluhhas. The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffaloes.
Water buffaloes are especially suitable for tilling rice fields, and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. Feral populations have naturalised in several countries.
From the Wikipedia article “Water buffalo” (en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Water_buffalo&oldid=1381331254), by Wikipedia contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). This block is kept separate from our own text.
Is the water buffalo endangered?
No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.
How is the water buffalo classified?
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- classMammalia
- orderArtiodactyla
- familyBovidae
- genusBubalus
- SpeciesBubalus bubalis (Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms Bos bubalis, Bubalus bubalis bubalis, Bubalus bubalis kerabau, Bubalus bubalis seminudus
Other names and names in other languages (114)
- Asian buffaloEnglish
- Asian buffaloEnglish
- Asian water buffaloEnglish
- Asian water buffaloEnglish
- CarabaoEnglish
- CarabaoEnglish
- Domestic water buffaloEnglish
- Feral water buffaloEnglish
- Swamp buffaloEnglish
- Water buffalo (feral)English
- Wild water buffaloEnglish
- Wild water buffaloEnglish
- АкамбашьAbkhazian
- KeubeueAcehnese
- KeubeuëAcehnese
- WaterbuffelAfrikaans
- جاموس الماءArabic
- جاموس المستنقعArabic
- جاموس الماء المستئنسArabic
- ম’হAssamese
- búfalu acuáticuAsturian
- ГамущAvaric
- Asiya camışıAzerbaijani
- HadanganBanjar
- মহিষBangla
- མ་ཧེ།Tibetan
- Bual AziaBreton
- ᨙᨈᨉᨚBuginese
- Búfal AquàticCatalan
- Buvol domácíCzech
- Byfflo DŵrWelsh
- HauswasserbüffelGerman
- Asiatischer BüffelGerman
- WasserbüffelGerman
- ΝεροβούβαλοςGreek
- AkvobubaloEsperanto
- Bufalo arniSpanish
- Búfalo asiáticoSpanish
- Búfalo de AguaSpanish
- Asiar bufaloBasque
- گاومیشPersian
- VesipuhveliFinnish
- Buffle domestiqueFrench
- BúfaloGalician
- OlobuGorontalo
- ભેંસGujarati
- Vodeni bivolSerbian (Latin)
- תאו מיםHebrew
- भैंसHindi
- házibivalyHungarian
- házi vízibivalyHungarian
- vízibivalyHungarian
- BufaloIdo
- VatnabuffallIcelandic
- BufalaItalian
- bufalo d'acquaItalian
- Bufalo indianoItalian
- スイギュウJapanese
- KeboJavanese
- Азиэ хывKabardian
- ಎಮ್ಮೆKannada
- 물소Korean
- WaasserbüffelLuxembourgish
- Benggalew
- Azijinis buivolasLithuanian
- Vandeninis buivolasLithuanian
- Ūdens bifelisLatvian
- KabauMinangkabau
- പോത്ത്Malayalam
- म्हैसMarathi
- KerbauMalay
- ကျွဲBurmese
- VuferoNeapolitan
- Tábąąh béégashiiNavajo
- TambøffelNorwegian Bokmål
- SumpbøffelNorwegian Bokmål
- vannbøffelNorwegian Bokmål
- भैँसीNepali
- KarbouwDutch
- Gedomesticeerde WaterbuffelDutch
- ମଇଁଷିOdia
- Wół domowyPolish
- Bawół domowyPolish
- مجWestern Panjabi
- Búfalo-asiáticoPortuguese
- Búfalo-de-águaPortuguese
- Домашний буйволRussian
- Азиатский буйволRussian
- Домашний азиатский буйволRussian
- මී හරකාSinhala
- vodni bivolSlovenian
- indijski bivolSlovenian
- BuallicaAlbanian
- MundingSundanese
- VattenbuffelSwedish
- ꠜꠂꠡsyl
- காட்டெருமைTamil
- గేదెTelugu
- ควายบ้านThai
- KalabawFilipino
- Bupalong tubigFilipino
- Domestikadong Asyanong Bupalong TubigFilipino
- Kalabaw na PantubigFilipino
- MandaTurkish
- Asya mandasıTurkish
- Водяний буйвілUkrainian
- Буйвіл азійський свійськийUkrainian
- Буйвіл водяний свійськийUkrainian
- Буйвіл індійський свійськийUkrainian
- بھینسUrdu
- TrâuVietnamese
- 水牛Chinese
- VaizZhuang
- Camusê AsyaZaza
Relatives of the water buffalo
Other species in the same genus Bubalus.
Tamaraw
Bubalus mindorensis
Wild water buffalo
Bubalus arnee
Lowland anoa
Bubalus depressicornis
Short-horned water buffalo
Bubalus mephistopheles
CompareWater buffalo vs TamarawWater buffalo vs Wild water buffaloWater buffalo vs Lowland anoaWater buffalo vs Short-horned water buffalo
Common questions
Each answer is written from the sourced facts on this page, and only where they hold the answer.
How heavy is a water buffalo?
The water buffalo has a representative adult body mass of 431.2 kg, with a highest reported value of 827.3 kg. This places it in the giant size class.
What does the water buffalo eat?
The water buffalo is a herbivore.
What kind of animal is the water buffalo?
The water buffalo is a mammal in the family Bovidae, order Artiodactyla.
How long does a water buffalo live?
The water buffalo has a lifespan of 31.88 years, with a highest reported value of 34.9 years.
How long is the water buffalo's gestation period?
Gestation lasts 314.8 days, with reported values from 310 to 330 days.
When does a water buffalo reach sexual maturity?
The water buffalo reaches sexual maturity at 1.5 years (553.5 days).
Which countries is the water buffalo recorded in?
Checklists record the water buffalo in Australia.
Who named the water buffalo?
The scientific name Bubalus bubalis carries the authority (Linnaeus, 1758).
Sources and how to cite this page
Data as of 2026-11-11. How this page is put together.
- An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles · CC0 1.0 · E096-269
Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1 - Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf - Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence). - EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
Wilman, H., Belmaker, J., Simpson, J., de la Rosa, C., Rivadeneira, M.M. & Jetz, W. (2014) EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95: 2027. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1917.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1 - Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
Wikidata contributors. Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org (data retrieved via the Wikidata Query Service). - Wikipedia (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-11-11
Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision).
Embed a card for this animal on your own site
Copy this code. The card shows the photo with its credit, key facts and a link back to this page.
CreatureData. (2026). Water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis). Retrieved from https://creaturedata.com/animals/water-buffalo
“Water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis).” CreatureData, 2026, https://creaturedata.com/animals/water-buffalo.
@misc{water_buffalo_2026,
title = {Water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis)},
author = {{CreatureData}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/water-buffalo},
note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}