Situation and Perspectives of Buffalo in the World, Europe and Macedonia

The Asian buffalo or the Water buffalo is classified in the genus Bubalus, species bubalis. Taming occurred at recent times (5,000 years ago) compared to taming of Bos Taurus and Bos Indicus (10,000 years ago). Asian buffalo includes two subspecies named also types: the River and the Swamp, the morphology and the purposes of which are different as well as the genetics. The River buffalo has 50 chromosomes of which 5 pairs are submetacentric, while 20 acrocentric. The Swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes, of which 19 pairs are metacentric. The two subspecies are inter-fertile and give progeny with 49 chromosomes. Male crossbred progeny has sometimes showed fertility problems while female progeny has showed longer calving intervals only in case of further backcross. Morphology of the two types differs considerably. Swamp buffaloes are less heavy, the adult male weight ranging between 325 and 450 kg, while River type weighs between 450 and 1000 kg. While the Swamp buffalo is reared mainly for draught purposes, although it also gives valuable milk production of up to 600 kg milk per year, the importance of the River buffalo depends on the high quality and quantity of the milk that it produces. Each subspecies shows a lot of breeds. Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) population in the world is actually about 172 million head: 168 million are in Asia (97%); 4 million are in Africa, practically only in Egypt (2.3%); 4,1 million in South America (2.4%); 40,000 in Australia (0.02%); 500,000 in Europe (0.3 %).