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A herd of Cape (or African) buffalo, 500 or even 1,000 strong, is a sight and a sensation to behold. The collective sound of contact bellows, trampling feet, crunching and munching of grass and the chip-buzz of the ever-present oxpeckers, is comparable to none. It is simply the wonderful sensory experience of one of Africa’s formidable “Big Five” moving en masse. Clouds of dust accompany the herds as they rush across a dry landscape towards a favoured waterhole in winter; and wisps of black wings accompany the herds as they move like a dark wave across a green pasture. These fighter-pilot like birds are fork-tailed drongos benefiting from insects disturbed by the grazing animals’ feet. Sometimes a false alarm is given by the birds to speed the buffalos’ pace.
Join safari guide, Kris “Harri” Harrison as she travels to &BEYOND’s magnificent wildlife destinations and discovers the buffalo individuals and herds that inhabit them.
An obstinancy of buffalos
Adapted from Game Ranger in your Backpack © Megan Emmett
Buffalo have excellent senses. They have large, hairy ears that hang down below the curved horns and while hearing and sight is good, their sense of smell is most acute.
They use this sense most predominantly, to find food or to detect predators. Buffalo have a wide row of incisor teeth, which they use in conjunction with their tongues to crop grass swiftly while they are on the move. They lack the moveable lips of more selective feeders.
Inquisitive by nature, buffalo approach sources of interest with their noses lifted and outstretched, to pick up any olfactory clues that might decode the object’s identity.
They use smell to communicate socially too. It is believed that the coordination of the numerous members within a herd is controlled by olfactory cues that afford recognition of individuals and allow the grouping of animals into sub-herds. In this regard vocal communication is also significant. Buffalo emanate cow-like bellows continuously as they move to maintain contact.
Buffalo are moderately sexually dimorphic (i.e. the differences between the sexes are subtle). Older bulls are black and typically caked with dry mud from wallowing.
Bulls have massive horns with huge bosses (the wider section that attaches to the skull). These meet in the middle to form an enormous, hard ‘helmet’ which they use in combat. Younger bulls have hair on their bosses.
Female buffalo, or cows, are more reddish-brown in colour and they have narrower horns and bosses than the bulls. Juvenile animals are also lighter browner in colour.
Young bulls can be discerned from the cows by a hairy coating on their horns which becomes progressively sparser with age.
Buffalo are bulk grazers, taking large quantities of long grass while on the move through an area. A herd of feeding buffalo sounds like a gentle bushfire crackling through dry grass.
They feed unselectively, opting for quantity over quality to sustain their large bodies. In the process of feeding, buffalo trample pastures and reduce long, less-palatable grasslands to a height and quality (when it reshoots) more easily utilised by zebra and wildebeest. This is known as grazing succession.
Because of the vast quantity of coarse material they eat, buffalo are dependent on regular access to drinking water. They drink daily, even twice a day during drier times.
The approach of a large herd of buffalo to a waterhole in winter is a noisy and spectacular affair. They move resolutely in the direction of water during the late afternoon and the approach of the columns of fast-moving animals can be detected some distance off by the presence of an advancing cloud of dust. The herd will arrive and submerge belly deep in the water to drink. They may consume up to 35 litres (8 gallons) of water at a time, drinking this up in mere minutes.
Buffalo regularly wallow in mud to keep themselves cool during the hottest part of the day and for pest control. It is mostly the bulls that wallow too, in a display of dominance.
Bulls will roll in the mud or toss mud with their horns to advertise their social status. Access to sometimes limited wallows depends on an individual’s rank in the herd hierarchy, in which some bulls dominate others and all bulls are superior to cows. Very old buffalo bulls that have passed their reproductive peak (from ten years old) are usually found alone or in small groups. These animals are sometimes nicknamed ‘dagga-boys’. Dagga is the Zulu word for mud and refers to their favoured pastime. Old animals often have skin diseases or old battle wounds so water and mud soothes the aches and pains. Food surrounding the localised waterholes that they frequent is also likely to be softer and more easily digested. These animals lack the protection of a herd and are susceptible to attacks from lions hence dagga-boys are extremely temperamental and dangerous if approached on foot.
When threatened, buffalo raise the alarm with a distinct distressed bellow to which members of the herd respond as a group. Calves and youngsters shelter with the cows in the middle of the herd.
Adult males defend the flanks and rear. Since they are such large bulky animals, putting up a united defence against predators is more effective than trying to flee clumsily. As a unit, buffalo will mob offending predators or stampede unexpectedly and they are often able to hold their own against even whole prides of lions. If they do flee, they run at a speed conducive to the herd remaining safely clumped together although an individual buffalo can reach speeds of almost 60 kmph (37 mph).
Buffalo are very heat sensitive. To avoid excessive exposure to hot temperatures, buffalo graze early in the morning or late in the afternoon and often feed through the cooler night hours.
As soon as daytime temperatures rise too high, buffalo move into the shade to rest and chew the cud (an important process to digest the coarse grass material they ingest). They also rest for parts of the night, during which time they lie touching one another. Because they are always on the move to find suitable grazing pastures and water, buffalo are not territorial, although they do move within familiar homeranges, which more-or-less exclude other buffalo herds. Homeranges expand or shrink depending on the shortage or availability of resources respectively.
Gregarious and living in mixed herds often numbering hundreds of individuals, buffalo aggregate or split up seasonally. A main herd is subdivided into more closely related units.
These are called clans and comprise cows and their offspring, which cluster, move and rest together. During abundant summer times, herds segregate into these smaller units, joining up again when resources are isolated in the dry season. Cows are arranged within the sub-herds according to rank, which improves when they have young calves. The advantage of rank allows individuals to feed ahead of and in the centre of the herd, avoiding trampled pastures and benefiting from better protection from predators. Adult bulls are affiliated to and preside over the clans. Within the larger herd, a bull’s status is delineated according to its size and age. When larger herds split, bulls may associate in age-related bachelor groups. The movements of a herd of buffalo are determined by ‘pathfinders’ that act as navigational leaders. Each sub-herd within the major herd has a pathfinder that will lead its members when the herd splits up.
Rank amongst bull buffalos is a product of their fighting ability, which is proportional to age and hence size. Various forms of posturing generally keep encounters between males civil.
Any strength contests are settled through head-on clashes, the impact of which is absorbed by the enormous bosses. The impact of more serious combat collisions can be likened to a car hitting a brick wall at 50 kmph (30 mph). High ranked bulls benefit from the best access to oestrus cows. Young bulls only get an opportunity to mate at 7 or 8 years old (in spite of reaching maturity at five). By isolating in bachelor groups, these youngsters are able to avoid the ongoing male power struggle within the larger herd for a time.
Bulls test the reproductive condition of cows through flehmen whereby urine particles are forced into the Organ-of-Jacobsen – found on the roof of the mouth – by a muscular facial grimace.
The Organ-of-Jacobsen detects the presence of steroid hormones. A cow in heat will be guarded by a bull, but cows are uncooperative and their evasive activity attracts other bulls, which subsequently replace the less dominant contenders. By the time the cow reaches the peak of her oestrus, the likeliest partner will by then be a dominant gene-superior bull.
Buffalo usually mate and calve during the rainy season, when there is an abundance of highly nutritious green grass to sustain the lactating cows. Cows give birth in the presence of the herd.
But they may be temporarily left behind while the calf gains the strength it needs to keep up. Although a calf may stand in just 10 minutes, it takes a few weeks for it to overcome its feeble sense of coordination and clumsy running ability.
You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have Bob Marley