Carabaos are a genetically distinct population of swamp-type water buffaloes from the Philippines. They descended from domesticated swamp buffalo populations from Taiwan that were introduced to the Philippines in the Neolithic via the Austronesian expansion. They were also further introduced to Sulawesi and Borneo of eastern Indonesia and Malaysia.

The water buffalo, also called the domestic water buffalo or Asian water buffalo, is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Today, it is also found in Italy, the Balkans, Australia, North America, South America and some African countries. Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria: the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans, Egypt and Italy and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze Valley of China in the east.