''Bubalus fudi'' is an extinct relative of

water buffalo The water buffalo (''Bubalus bubalis''), also called domestic water buffalo, Asian water buffalo and Asiatic water buffalo, is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Today, it is also kept in Italy, the Balkans ...

, which survived in the late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

Discovery

The

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

of ''Bubalus fudi'' was discovered by a company (Beijing Fudi Investment Co., Ltd) in 2002 while digging the foundations of a building near

Haidian District Haidian () is a northwest urban district of Beijing, bordering Xicheng, Beijing, Xicheng and Fengtai, Beijing, Fengtai. It is in area, making it the second-largest district in urban Beijing area (after Chaoyang, Beijing, Chaoyang), and is home ...

Qinghe railway station Qinghe railway station ( zh, c=清河站, p=Qīnghé zhàn) is a railway station in Beijing. The old station began its construction in 1905 and opened in 1906. The station closed on October 31, 2016, to be rebuilt into a new high-speed railway ...

. It was a complete skull fossil and published by researchers in 2008 as a new species. Researchers use the company's name (Fudi) as the

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

of the species. The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

was collected by the company. Researchers think that the appearance of species is close to ''

Bubalus youngi ''Bubalus'' is a genus of Asiatic bovines that was proposed by Charles Hamilton Smith in 1827. ''Bubalus'' and ''Syncerus'' form the subtribe Bubalina, the true buffaloes. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and classification of ...

''. The horns are both strong and there are no obvious back bump on the skull

occipital bone The occipital bone () is a neurocranium, cranial dermal bone and the main bone of the occiput (back and lower part of the skull). It is trapezoidal in shape and curved on itself like a shallow dish. The occipital bone lies over the occipital lob ...

, but the occipital bone position is higher than ''Bubalus youngi''. The results of the analysis of

phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

based on skull characteristics showed that ''Bubalus fudi'' was a

sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of ''Bubalus youngi'', ''

Bubalus triangulus ''Bubalus'' is a Genus (biology), genus of Asiatic Bovinae, bovines that was proposed by Charles Hamilton Smith in 1827. ''Bubalus'' and ''Syncerus'' form the subtribe Bubalina, the true buffaloes. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclat ...

'' and the

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

of the living bubalus, while the clade of the four was the sister group of '' Bubalus wansijocki''. In 2014, some scholars proposed that ''Bubalus fudi'' should be regarded as a

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

of ''Bubalus wansijocki''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q105501185 Fossil taxa described in 2008 Bubalus Pleistocene Fossils of China

Discovery

See also

References