These wild buffalo have the most wonderful Latin name: bubalus bubalis bubalis. Most satsfying to say. The domesticated water buffalo is pretty common across much of Asia, but its wilder counterpart is found only in India and Sri Lanka and is endangered.
As well as being what might be known as a “swimmy-cow”, they tend to spend their time lolling in mudpools or waterholes to keep cool during the day.
http://walkthewilderness.net/animals-of-sri-lanka-7-water-buffalo/
Here’s a link to the full taxonomy of the wild bubalus bubalis bubalis – it’s interesting (to me) that Linnaeus set out the class, species and sub-species in 1758, but that more layers were “discovered” or at least catalogued all the way through to 1897. I had thought of taxonomy (if at all) like archaeology: you would find one layer, then the next, then the next, in a (chrono)logical sequence. Our knowledge of the animal world has been discovered differently…
https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=898720#null
Stamp of the Day 