Their grazing and trampling of old grass opens up additional land for more selective species.Oxpeckers feed on the ectoparasites of buffalo. Buffalo are often accompanied by cattle egrets, which feed on insects flushed during grazing.Bulls often head-spar, a milder form of fighting that has the general appearance of play, to establish dominance status.ĭelany & Happold (1979), East (1998), Estes (1991), Happold (1987), (Kingdon 1982), Mloszewski (1983), Pienaar (1969), Prins (1996), Prins & Lason (1989), Schaller (1972), Sinclair (1977), Smithers (1983) Fights occur infrequently, generally between two individuals close in dominance status, and are usually brief, though violent and possibly fatal heaviest animal wins.Fighting can involve charging with chin raised, ramming, and front-pressing.Agonistic behaviors include: high-horn presentation (threat), lateral display, rubbing face or neck on ground, ground-horning with earth tossing, horning bushes, rolling in mud/dust, wallowing in deep mud, and circling.There is less aggression among males in old bachelor groups than in breeding herds. Males 8-10 years old are usually strongest and do the mating herd bulls keep their standing about 4-5 years. Body size, which increases with age, determines dominance among males, who are dominant over all females.Threat behavior, rather than aggressive fighting, is usually sufficient to maintain linear hierarchy among adult bulls.Forest buffalo live in smaller groups (up to eight individuals) than Cape buffalo.Many adult males leave breeding herds after the rutting season, a time that may correspond with dry-season fragmentation of their habitat. Large herds usually contain males, females, and young however, males are often solitary or in bachelor herds of usually not more than a dozen animals and rarely having as many as 50 individuals. Larger herds usually occur in more open areas (e.g., extensive floodplains and broad river valleys), and the largest may form near the end of the wet season, when mating peaks. Average herd sizes range from 3.7 to 590, but herds may number up to ca.Herds occasionally mingle, but the herd is a recognizable unit to its members. Herds vary in size according to season and locality (i.e., availability of food and water) size and composition can change frequently.Males more than 10 years of age remain permanently separated from the herd. Young bulls generally keep their distance from adults, and at about 4 years of age, they begin to leave the herd in bachelor groups during the dry season. Males end their maternal bond at adolescence.Upon maturity, females are believed to remain in their clans, although they no longer closely follow their dam.An offspring accompanies its dam until about 2-3 years of age, after which time, it often forms a subgroup with other young. Social licking is believed to foster bonds between herd members and mother and calf. Social life appears to be built around mother-calf relationship.Herds are small stable groups or clans of presumably related cows gathered in a nearly linear dominance hierarchy and adult and subadult bulls that are ranked by age and physical condition (i.e., size and strength).Mud wallowing, possibly related to grooming, may also have a social significance because in some populations it is done most frequently by dominant bulls, generally during the heat of the day.Buffalo toward the front of a moving herd tend to be in better physical condition than those toward the rear. Breeding herds travel 2-3 times as far per day as do bachelor herds, and "pathfinder" individuals usually guide the herds.
Buffalo prefer to rest in the open, except in extreme heat or when disturbed by humans. Resting and ruminating peaks from 0100 to 0500 and from 1200 to 1600 h, although shorter resting periods occur every 0.5-3 hours.They may restrict grazing to dawn, dusk, and nighttime in disturbed areas. Grazing peaks occur between 06:00 and 10:00 and from 14:00 to 18:00 h nocturnal grazing mostly occurs from 20:00 to 03:30 h. Grazing activity may total 5.3-13.4 hours/day, about equally spent between night and day, though some populations may feed more at night.65-85% of a 24-hour period is spent grazing and ruminating.Cape buffalo are both diurnal and nocturnal little is known about forest buffalo.
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