Romanian Buffalo

The Romanian buffalo is a water buffalo breed from Romania descended from the Mediterranean type, with Murrah bloodlines from Bulgaria introduced from 1960 and a herdbook established in 1987. The Romanian population divides into three types: the Carpathian, the most numerous and best adapted to cold climates, the Danubian, and lines improved through Indian Murrah genetics. It is uniformly black-coated with black skin, carries two backward-curving horns 50 to 70 centimetres long, and has a distinctive sinuous back line in which the loin and tail sit lower than the withers and croup; males reach 140 to 142 centimetres and 650 to 680 kilograms, females 131 to 133 centimetres and 530 to 560 kilograms, and the breed is used for dairy, meat and draught work, yielding between about 958 and 1,455 kilograms of milk a year.