{"id":425,"date":"2007-12-05T17:55:18","date_gmt":"2007-12-05T17:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2007\/12\/05\/the-african-buffalo\/"},"modified":"2007-12-05T17:55:18","modified_gmt":"2007-12-05T17:55:18","slug":"the-african-buffalo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/05\/the-african-buffalo\/","title":{"rendered":"The African Buffalo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"i-1f5e45f094e922e9955cc2356ff60451-BuffaloFish.jpg\"The African Buffalo is NOT a bison, and it is NOT a “water buffalo” (it is not even the same genus as water buffalo). But like these other beasts, it is a kind of cattle.The scientific name of the African Buffalo, or Cape Buffalo, is Syncerus caffir<\/em>. Only the most cynical taxonomists would support the continued use of this term. “Caffer” is the same word as “Kaffir” which in modern usage has the same connotation as “Nigger.” The term “caffir” or “kaffir” has been dropped from other species names, but as far as I know, not yet from the Cape Buffalo. I don’t know why.This particular buffalo is standing tummy-deep in the mud at the base of a fairly large dam on a river in Kruger National Park, South Africa. You can obviously see that the dam (lake) is somewhat dried up. The disturbed surface of the water that you can see off to the right of the Cape Buffalo is caused by very large cat fish who are waiting for rain.The scientific name of the African Buffalo, or Cape Buffalo, is Syncerus caffir<\/em>. Only the most cynical taxonomists would support the continued use of this term. “Caffer” is the same word as “Kaffir” which in modern usage has the same connotation as “Nigger.” The term “caffir” or “kaffir” has been dropped from other species names, but as far as I know, not yet from the Cape Buffalo. I don’t know why.This particular buffalo is standing tummy-deep in the mud at the base of a fairly large dam on a river in Kruger National Park, South Africa. You can obviously see that the dam (lake) is somewhat dried up. The disturbed surface of the water that you can see off to the right of the Cape Buffalo is caused by very large cat fish who are waiting for rain.In fact, here is an image from space (actually, from Google Earth) of the dam:\"i-ac3934dcd9ca141819d72f416fa09ccc-kruger_lake.jpg\"The area of buildings and such is Berg-en-Dal rest camp, in the southern part of Kruger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The African Buffalo is NOT a bison, and it is NOT a “water buffalo” (it is not even the same genus as water buffalo). But like these other beasts, it is a kind of cattle.The scientific name of the African Buffalo, or Cape Buffalo, is Syncerus caffir. Only the most cynical taxonomists would support the … Continue reading The African Buffalo<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[186],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-6R","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}