Water Buffalo

Native to Asia and residing in marshy wetland areas, the water buffalo is black in color and measures up to 6 feet tall at the shoulder.  They subsist on a herbivore diet of grasses, water plants and plant leaves.  The buffalo are cud-chewing animals with cloven hooves that enable them to live in a marshy habitat.  They have thick permanent horns that sweep in an outward curve back toward the shoulders and mat extend up to 3 1/2 feet from tip to tip.  A large portion of the animals hide is bare and glossy, with short, stiff, scanty patches of hair.

The water buffalo can be a dangerous animal in the wild when it is alarmed or aroused.  However, the animal was domesticated in ancient times and has been used ever since as a draft animal, for pulling plows when cultivating farmland.