[2] There are five subspecies that are recognized as valid by most authorities: The adult African buffalo's horns are its characteristic feature: they have fused bases, forming a continuous bone shield across the top of the head, referred to as a "boss".

Forest-type buffaloes are 30–40% smaller, reddish brown in colour, with much more hair growth around the ears and with horns that curve back and slightly up.

A characteristic feature of the horns of adult male African buffalo (southern and eastern populations) is that the bases come very close together, forming a shield referred to as a "boss".

From the base, the horns diverge downwards, then smoothly curve upwards and outwards and in some cases inwards and or backwards.

In large bulls, the distance between the ends of the horns can reach upwards of one metre (the record being 64.5 inches 164 cm).

Unlike other large bovines, African buffalo have 52 chromosomes (for comparison, American bison and domestic cattle have 60).

This means domestic cattle and bison are unable to create hybrid offspring with cape buffalo.

It lives in savannas, swamps and floodplains, as well as mopane grasslands, and the forests of the major mountains of Africa.

[16] This buffalo prefers a habitat with dense cover, such as reeds and thickets, but can also be found in open woodland.

When feeding, the buffalo makes use of its tongue and wide incisor row to eat grass more quickly than most other African herbivores.

It often takes several lions to bring down a single adult buffalo, and the entire pride may join in the hunt.

[21] The average-sized Nile crocodile typically attacks only old solitary animals and young calves, though they can kill healthy adults.

Most well-known are Lindsay Hunt's efforts to source uninfected animals from the Kruger National Park in South Africa.

In one videotaped instance, known as the Battle at Kruger, a calf survived an attack by both lions and a crocodile after intervention of the herd.

They emit low-pitched, two- to four-second calls intermittently at three- to six-second intervals to signal the herd to move.

To signal to the herd to change direction, leaders emit "gritty", "creaking gate" sounds.

[17] When moving to drinking places, some individuals make long "maaa" calls up to 20 times a minute.

Newborn calves remain hidden in vegetation for the first few weeks while being nursed occasionally by the mother before joining the main herd.

That bonding ends when a new calf is born, and the mother then keeps her previous offspring at bay with horn jabs.

[35] The current status of the African buffalo is dependent on the animal's value to both trophy hunters and tourists, paving the way for conservation efforts through anti-poaching patrols, village crop damage payouts, and CAMPFIRE payback programs to local areas.

"[1] In the most recent and available census data at continental scale, the total estimated numbers of the three savanna-type African buffalo subspecies (S. c. caffer, S. c. brachyceros and S. c. aequinoctialis) are at 513,000 individuals.

[38] In the past, numbers of African buffaloes suffered their most severe collapse during the great rinderpest epidemic of the 1890s, which, coupled with pleuro-pneumonia, caused mortalities as high as 95% among livestock and wild ungulates.

One of the "big five" African game, it is known as "the Black Death" or "the widowmaker", and is widely regarded as a very dangerous animal.

African buffaloes are sometimes reported to kill more people in Africa than any other animal, although the same claim is also made of hippopotamuses and crocodiles.

[40] These numbers may be somewhat overestimated; for example, in the country of Mozambique, attacks, especially fatal ones, were much less frequent on humans than those by hippos, and especially, Nile crocodiles.