1890s African rinderpest epizootic
In the 1890s, an epizootic of the rinderpest virus struck all across Africa, but primarily in Eastern and Southern Africa. It was considered to be "the most devastating epidemic to hit southern Africa in the late nineteenth century." It killed more than 5.2 million cattle south of the Zambezi, as well as domestic oxen, sheep, and goats, and wild populations of buffalo, giraffe, and wildebeest. The effects of the outbreak were drastic, leading to massive famine, economic collapse, as well as disease outbreak in humans. Starvation spread across the region, resulting in the death of an estimated third of the human population of Ethiopia and two-thirds of the Maasai people of Tanzania.
Cattle dead from rinderpest in South Africa, 1896
The African buffalo is a large sub-Saharan African bovine. There are five subspecies that are recognized as being valid. Syncerus caffer caffer, the Cape buffalo, is the nominotypical subspecies, and the largest one, found in Southern Africa and East Africa. S. c. nanus is the smallest subspecies, common in forest areas of Central Africa and West Africa, while S. c. brachyceros is in West Africa and S. c. aequinoctialis is in the savannas of East Africa. 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".
Image: African buffalo (Syncerus caffer caffer) male with cattle egret
Image: Syncerus caffer nanus 001
Male African buffalo with red-billed oxpecker, partly a symbiotic relationship and partly parasitic
A pair of African buffalo resting inside Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.