''Bubalus mephistopheles'', also known as the short-horned water buffalo, is an extinct species of

bovine Bovines (subfamily Bovinae) comprise a diverse group of 10 genera of medium to large-sized ungulates, including Bos, cattle, bison, African buffalo, Bubalus, water buffalos, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes. The members of this gro ...

that lived in China during the

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 ...

and

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

. It survived into historic times, perhaps as recently as

1200 BC The 1200s BC is a decade which lasted from 1209 BC to 1200 BC. Events and trends * 1207 BC **Pharaoh Merneptah claims a victory over the Ysrir, identified by some historians as the Israelites. ** October 30 – Earliest known dateable solar ...

Description

The short-horned water buffalo was first described in 1925. It is distinguished by its short, extremely triangular horn cores, which are crescent-shaped and gently curve inwards. The short-horned water buffalo is known with certainty to have disappeared during the Holocene. Although no direct radiometric dates are available, this species is present in a series of well-dated

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

and

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

zooarchaeological deposits across southern, central and eastern China (from

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

to northern

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

Domestication status

For many years since its description, the short-horned buffalo was considered a domesticated form of buffalo indigenous to China that played an integral part in the development of paddy rice cultivation in Neolithic and Bronze Age times. However such notions were challenged in the 2000s. In 2004, fossils of the short-horned water buffalo from several Neolithic assemblages in China were compared with remains of domestic buffalo/cattle from

Dholavira Dholavira () is an archaeological site at Khadirbet in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District, in the state of Gujarat in western India, which has taken its name from a modern-day village south of it. This village is from Radhanpur. Also known loc ...

, an urban site of the

Harappan civilization The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE t ...

in South Asia dated to between 2600 - 1900 BC. At Dholavira, the ages of the bovines were categorized into six age-stages, ranging from infant (stage I) to adult (stage VI). Almost all the young bovines survived through stages I-III, but some were killed off before growth slowed down in stage IV and the rest mostly survived into full adulthood (stages V-VI). This pattern is consistent with the use of domestic animals for ploughing, hauling, and transport. In contrast, the three Neolithic assemblages from China all had large proportions of very young calves and some very old individuals, which most likely represents a pattern of hunting wild populations. Furthermore, wild and domestic buffaloes show a significant difference in body size, with wild buffaloes being much larger than domesticated ones. But a comparison from four different sites dated to 6000 - 1200 BC showed no reduction of body size in the ''B. mephistopheles'' populations during this period. A 2008 study on the DNA sequences of ''B. mephistopheles'' showed that it was not a direct ancestor of domestic buffalo, although it was closely related.

Domestic 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 ...

''(Bubalus bubalis)'' were introduced into China from South Asia, most likely around the first millennium.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2927376 Fossil taxa described in 1925 Bubalus Pleistocene Artiodactyla Pleistocene mammals of Asia Holocene extinctions Neolithic China Yinxu