[2][3][4][5] This animal was a large bovid similar to the modern Asian buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), of which it is probably ancestral.

[6] The teeth were hypsodont, with increasing development of dental cement; the upper molars were square.

The genus Hemibos was first described in 1865 by Rütimeyer, based on fossils found in India in Plio-Pleistocene soils.

The genus includes five species; three of these (H. acuticornis, H. triquetricornis and H. antelopinus) come from the Pinjor formation of the Siwaliks (Plio-Pleistocene, Indian subcontinent),[2] one (H. gracilis) is known from Gansu (China) in the lower Pleistocene, and another (H. galerianus) is the largest and most recent and comes from Ponte Galeria and Ponte Milvio (Rome, Italy) and dates from the Early Pleistocene/Middle Pleistocene boundary.

Another species attributed to Hemibos is H. palaestinicus from Israel, but the dating is not certain and a morphological analysis indicates it may belong to the genus Bison.