Syncerus brachyceros
Creators: name: Don E. Wilson
name: Russell A. Mittermeier
Publisher: name: Lynx Edicions
Year: 2011
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Artiodactyla
Bovidae
Syncerus
Syncerus brachyceros

description: 11.
Lake Chad Buffalo
Syncerus brachyceros
French: Buffle du Tchad / German: Sudan-Buffel / Spanish: Bufalo de sabana
Other common names: Savanna Buffalo, West African Buffalo
Taxonomy. Bubalus brachyceros Gray, 1837,
Lake Chad, Africa.
This taxon has often been called aequinoctialis, and the name brachyceros has been applied to what are likely hybrids between this species and the Forest Buffalo (S. nanus), which occurs in southern parts of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. Recent study of more abundant museum material shows that the buffalo originally found around Lake Chad, the type locality of brachyceros, represent a different species we are calling the Lake Chad Buffalo. Synonyms include aequinoctialis, azrakensis, centralis, neumanni, and solvayi. Monotypic.
Distribution. SE Senegal, extreme SW Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, NW Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, S Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, extreme S Niger, W & C Nigeria, N Cameroon, S Chad, Central African Republic, S & E Sudan, N DR Congo, lowland parts of W Ethiopia, Uganda (not extreme S), NW Kenya (Lake Turkana region).
Descriptive notes. Head-body 200-245 cm, tail 55-70 cm, shoulder height 120-145 cm; weight 350-500 kg (males) and 250-450 kg (females). The Lake Chad Buffalo is smaller than the Cape Buffalo. It is stocky in build, with relatively short legs. Both sexes of the Lake Chad Buffalo have a smooth, dark brown coat, usually only slightly reddish and apparently never quite black. The horns of both sexes are widely spread laterally, but much less curved than on the Cape Buffalo, so that the length of each horn is noticeably less than the total span. Horn span is 56.2-103 cm, and horn length along the curve is 53-94. 5 cm. In males, the bases of horns of the Lake Chad Buffalo are greatly expanded, nearly meeting in midline, but not forming a convex boss. The skull is massive but short and broad, and convex in profile. The greatest length of the skull is 43.3-59. 9 cm, and the mastoid breadth is 15-31. 7 cm. The mouth is wide, and the nose is moist and bare. Similar to the Cape Buffalo, the ears are large, droopy, and meagerly fringed, and the tail is tufted. No scent glands have been described in the Lake Chad Buffalo. Dental formulais 10/3, C0/1, P 3/3, M 3/3 (x2) = 32. In Burkina Faso, West Africa, 34 samples of maxillae from three sites showed that measurements of tooth size and wear and enamel height of M' were useful to age Lake Chad Buffaloes. In contrast to the Cape Buffalo, cementum annuli on M' of the Lake Chad Buffalo in Burkina Faso provided inconsistent results because annuli were very irregular in appearance and intensity, despite the punctuated and long dry season that was expected to produce clear annuli. In western Uganda, the number of cementum annuli and the heights of the crowns of M, and M' were highly correlated, providing a useful method for aging.
Habitat. Lake Chad Buffaloes occur in the long savanna belt across sub-Saharan Africa. They use open grasslands but are never far from shrub/forest cover and water.
Food and Feeding. [Lake Chad Buffaloes are predominantly grazers. In Benoue National Park, northern Cameroon, they ate 16 plant species and preferred grasses, particularly Andropogon gayanus and A. tectorum, in both the dry (74% of the diet) and rainy seasons (86%). Woody plant species, particularly Piliostigma thonningu (including fruits) and Gardenia erubescens (including flowers), were more important during the dry season (26%) than in the rainy season (14%). Early dry season fires in northern Cameroon result in a subsequent flush of green grasses, which are sought out by grazing Buffaloes. Lake Chad Buffaloes drank daily from the Benoue River or standing waterholes either between 11:00 h and 12:45 h or 16:00 h and 19:30 h. They drank intermittently available water whereverit was found.
Breeding. There is no specific information available for this species, but probably very comparable to the Cape Buffalo. Maximum longevity in the wild may be 18-20 years, perhaps less, and at least two individuals have lived to 21-4 and 23-3 years in captivity.
Activity patterns. Lake Chad Buffaloes in northern Cameroon spent more time grazing during the day than during the night. Over 24 hours in the dry season, they spent 7-9 hours grazing (3:7 hours at night) and 9-6 hours resting (4-6 hours at night). Estimates of activities for a full 24 hours during the rainy season were not possible in this study, but during the daylight, they spent only 3-1 hours grazing and 3-8 hours resting. Grazing during the dry season was most intense from 09:00 h to 10:20 h, with rest from 10:45 h to 12:10 h and again from 14:30 h to 15:40 h. During the rainy season, peak morning grazing occurred from 10:10 h to 11:20 h and was light but constant in the afternoon until dusk; rest periods occurred from 09:25 h to 10:00 h and again from 13:10 h to 14:55 h.
Movements, Home range and Social organization. Densities of the Lake Chad Buffalo are 0-3-0-6 ind/km* where the species is considered common and often less than 0-2 ind/km?* in depleted populations; both are considerably less than many Cape Buffalo populations. In Benoue National Park, northern Cameroon, Lake Chad Buffaloes moved with daily regularity from feeding sites to water sources during the dry season, but no regular pattern was observed during the rainy season, when both food and water were more readily available. Mean daily distances moved were 5-6 km in the rainy season and 7-2 km in the dry season. Home ranges were small in the rainy season (46 km?) and larger in the dry season (61 km?), and their overlap of 54% showed that Lake Chad Buffaloes did not occupy disjunct seasonal ranges. Densities in Benoue National Park were higher than average for the species and estimated at 1-2 ind/km? in the rainy season and 0-8 ind/km? in the dry season.
Status and Conservation. Classified as Least Concern on The IUCN Red List (included underS. cafferas all African buffaloes). Range-wide, numbers of African buffaloes have been greatly reduced from historical levels because of land-use changes, disease (notably anthrax, rinderpest, and bovine tuberculosis), poaching, and extended drought, and these are still common threats in localized areas. In the late 1990s, numbers of non-forest African buffaloes were estimated at 500,000-1,000,000, with 70% of them occurring in and around protected areas. If indeed the Lake Chad Buffalo is the dominant species in Uganda, as proposed here, population levels are the highest there. Elsewhere, particularly through the sub-Saharan savanna belt in West Africa, populations are smaller and likely decreasing where not protected. Populations of Lake Chad Buffaloes have been greatly reduced in Mali (one population left), Guinea (perhaps only vagrants from Senegal), northern Togo (close to extinction), western and central Nigeria (two isolated populations), Chad (eliminated from most ofits former central range, including the type locality), Sudan (eliminated from most ofits former central range). The species is extinct in Gambia and Eritrea.
Bibliography. Blancou (1935), East (1999), Estes (1991a, 1991b), Field (1972), Grimsdell (1973), Groves & Grubb (2011), Grubb (1972), Huffman (2010d), Kingdon (1982), Lydekker (1913), de Mazancourt et al. (1999), Nowak (1999), Sinclair (1977), Spinage & Brown (1988), Stark (1986), Van Hooft et al. (2000, 2002), Weigl (2005).
description: Published as part of Don E. Wilson & Russell A. Mittermeier, 2011, Bovidae, pp. 444-779 in Handbook of the Mammals of the World – Volume 2 Hoofed Mammals, Barcelona :Lynx Edicions on pages 586-587, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6512484