Bovines: Mini-Buffaloes

Anoa (probably lowland species)

One of the themes that we see played out from time to time in evolution is that of insular dwarfism. Here, a population of some large animal is trapped on an island or (less commonly) some other isolated locale from which they cannot easily escape. Faced with a limited food and other resources, over sufficiently large periods of time, they become smaller, making the best of whatever there is. (There is also a related phenomenon of insular gigantism, whereby really small creatures become larger, likely because they no longer need to hide from predators that happen to absent on their island).

Today, there are no tiny elephants or rhinos, but bovines - where the males of some species can weigh upwards of a ton - are a different matter. At least two, and probably three, species of living bovine are examples of exactly this principle in action.

The reason that I'm vague about the numbers here is that there is still some dispute about the nature of the anoa. There are usually regarded as being two species: the lowland anoa (Bubalus depressicornis), and the mountain anoa (Bubalus quarlesi). But not everyone agrees that the two are distinct. The first formal suggestion that they might be separate species was made by Dutch scientist Pieter Ouwens, better known for being the first scientist to describe the komodo dragon. That was back in 1910, and at least as late as the 1960s, there was still general agreement that the two forms were physically distinct, and that they likely favoured different terrain.

Bovines: Will the Real Buffaloes Please Stand Up?

African buffalo

Outside of North America, the term "buffalo" refers not to the bison, but to two (or more) species of bovine native to Africa and Asia. In the wild, by far the more common of the two is the African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), which has the distinction of being the only non-domesticated species of truly cow-like bovine that isn't even slightly endangered.

African buffalo are very numerous, and found across wide swathes of Africa south of the Sahara. This includes a fair number of different habitats, and African buffalo vary not just in their habits and preferences, but in their physical appearance, across that range. They were first described scientifically by Swedish naturalist Anders Sparrman in 1779, based on an animal found at Algoa Bay, near present-day Port Elizabeth in South Africa. Given the association with that general part of the world, the alternative name of "Cape buffalo" is often used for the animal, although that seems a little restrictive for something so widespread to me.

At any rate, over the next century and a half, scientists racked up descriptions of an impressive number of subspecies - by 1913, at least 21 were recognised. In the hundred years since, that number has steadily declined as it has become clear just how tiny the differences between some of them were. Even now, the question isn't entirely settled. There is agreement that there at least three subspecies, but there might be more, and it has been also been argued that some of them are genetically distinct enough to be full species in their own right.