After a gestation of nearly 285 days (nine to ten months), a week longer than that typically observed in taurine cattle, a single calf is born.

Domesticated banteng occur in Bali and many eastern Indonesian islands (such as Sulawesi, Sumbawa, and Sumba), Australia, Malaysia, and New Guinea.

The wild banteng is classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List,[2] and populations have decreased by more than 50% in the past few decades.

Rampant poaching (for food, game, traditional medicine and horns), habitat loss and fragmentation and susceptibility to disease are major threats throughout its range.

[4] Fossils of banteng known from the Middle Pleistocene of Thailand along with Stegodon, gaur, wild water buffalo and other living and extinct mammals.

[1] Four subspecies are generally recognised based on phenotypic differences, though some authors do not accept these, citing extensive breeding between the small remaining banteng populations and other sympatric cattle.

[12][17] The coat of young bulls is reddish brown, and progressively attains the adult colouration starting from the front to the rear parts.

The face is lighter relative to the rest of the body, whitish or tawny grey at the forehead and around the eyes but darker near the black snout.

[12] A study in Deramakot Forest Reserve (Sabah) showed the presence of several herbal seeds (such as Mimosa pudica and Paspalum conjugatum), bamboo (probably Dinochloa species) and tree bark in faecal samples.

[23] A study in West Java showed that banteng grazed mostly on the grasses Axonopus compressus, Cynodon dactylon, Ischaemum muticum and P. conjugatum, and the woody shrub Psychotria malayana.

[2][17][25] After a gestation of nearly 285 days (nine to ten months), a week longer than that typically observed in taurine cattle, a single calf is born.

[17][26] Bali ziekte, which is a skin disease seen exclusively in banteng, begins with a dry eczema, worsening to necrosis and lacerated mucous membranes in the affected area.

[2][5] The largest populations of wild banteng occur in Cambodia, Java and possibly in Borneo, Viet Nam (Tay Nguyen) and Thailand.

They are also known to occur in Kalimantan (Borneo) and Myanmar; their presence is uncertain in Bali, Sarawak, China, Laos and they are feared to have gone extinct in (if they were present in) Bangladesh, Brunei and India.

Domesticated banteng occur in Bali and many eastern Indonesian islands (such as Sulawesi, Sumbawa, and Sumba), Australia, Malaysia and New Guinea.

[2][18] In the past banteng were widespread in the Southeast Asian mainland, including Yunnan Province (China) and extending to Borneo and Java through Peninsular Malaysia; northeastern India and Bali were probably part of the range.

[2] However, in East Kalimantan cave art portraying a bovid, dating back to c. 10,000 BC, has been suggested by some to be a depiction of banteng and led to speculation that the species might have reached up to the Wallace Line by that time.

[28][20] Hooijer opined that the earliest reference to the banteng was made by the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant in his 1800 account Outlines of the Globe, where he mentions a record of "wild oxen, of a reddish brown colour, with vast horns, and of a great size" in Java.

[17][30] They are also used as draught animals to a limited extent; banteng are reportedly less efficient than zebu in dragging carts on roads, though they are suitable for agricultural work.

[32] Domesticated banteng were first introduced to Australia in 1849 with the establishment of a British military outpost called Port Essington on Cobourg Peninsula.

[34] As of 2007, around 8,000–10,000 feral banteng occur in Australia, mainly in Garig Gunak Barlu National Park (Cobourg Peninsula, Northern Territory).

[37] Australian banteng are considered a non-native vermin species, as they reportedly trample and destroy vegetation cover by overgrazing, and sometimes harm and kill people who may closely approach them.

[38][39] In a study in the monsoon forests of Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, banteng were found to cause little damage by overgrazing, especially when compared with feral pigs in the region.

[40] Instead, grazing by banteng possibly minimises potential dry grass build-up, thus limiting encroachment of seasonal fires (hence postfire grassland) into monsoonal forest areas, and this may help with the dispersal and germination of seeds.

Rampant poaching (for food, game, traditional medicine and horns), habitat loss and fragmentation and susceptibility to disease are major threats throughout the range.

[49][50] The only populations of more than 50 individuals in Thailand occur in the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary and possibly in the Kaeng Krachan National Park.

[51] In East Java, a survey between 2011 and 2013 recorded rapid decline in populations in the Baluran National Park, though the numbers appeared to be stable in the Meru Betiri National Park; the researchers identified poaching, habitat disturbance, competition with other species, changes in vegetation cover and habitat loss as major threats.

Some have proposed that a deliberate introduction of the endangered populations to the stable but non-native Australian variety would enable viable conservation, though how it would affect Northern Territory grazing ranges is unknown.

[36] Another possible threat is introgression with other cattle and similar bovids throughout their range where they coexist in the wild or due to crossbreeding programs, that may compromise the genetic integrity or purity of banteng populations.

[31][2] This, coupled with possibly low genetic diversity in small, isolated populations, is a major concern in Sabah, where water buffaloes might crossbreed with wild banteng.