Kodiak bear
The Kodiak bear, known as the Kodiak brown bear, sometimes the Alaskan brown bear, inhabits the islands of the Kodiak Archipelago in southwest Alaska. It is the largest recognized subspecies of bear, and one of the two largest bears alive today, the other being the polar bear. While there is much variation in size between brown bears in different areas, most usually weigh between 115 and 360 kg. The Kodiak bear, on the hand, commonly reaches sizes of 300 to 600 kg. Despite this large variation in size, the diet and lifestyle of the Kodiak bear does not differ greatly from that of brown bears. Ever since the first humans arrived in Alaska over the Bering land bridge, these encounters have become relatively more common as a result of the increase in the human population in the region. Such encounters have included the hunting of bears by humans for their fur or meat, more recently, as conservation efforts have become more commonplace, concerns over the sustenance and stability of the Kodiak bear population have arisen.
The IUCN classifies Ursus arctos, the species to which the Kodiak belongs, the IUCN does not differentiate between subspecies, therefore, it is unknown whether the Kodiak bear population is as healthy as is stated. As a result, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, along with, to a lesser extent, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, closely monitors the number of bears hunted in the state. Merriam was first to recognize the Kodiak bear as a subspecies of the brown bear. Subsequent taxonomic work merged all North American brown bears into a single species, genetic samples from bears on Kodiak have shown that they are related to brown bears on the Alaska Peninsula and Kamchatka and all brown bears roughly north of the US. Kodiak bears have been isolated since at least the last ice age. Hair colors range from blonde to orange to dark brown, cubs often retain a white natal ring around their neck for the first few years of life. The Kodiak bears color is similar to that of their close relative.
The size range for females is from 181 to 318 kg, mature males average 477–534 kg over the course of the year, and can weigh up to 680 kg at peak times. Females are typically about 20% smaller and 30% lighter than males, bears weigh the least when they emerge from their dens in the spring, and can increase their weight by 20–30% during late summer and fall. Bears in captivity can sometimes attain weights considerably greater than those of wild bears, an average adult male measures 244 cm in length and stands 133 cm tall at the shoulder. The largest recorded wild male weighed 751 kg and had a hind foot measurement of 46 cm, a large male Kodiak bear stands up to 1.5 m tall at the shoulder when it is standing on all four legs
Elephant
Elephants are large mammals of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea. Three species are recognised, the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Elephantidae is the surviving family of the order Proboscidea, now extinct, members of the order include deinotheres, mammoths. Male African elephants are the largest extant terrestrial animals and can reach a height of 4 m, all elephants have several distinctive features, the most notable of which is a long trunk or proboscis, used for many purposes, particularly breathing, lifting water, and grasping objects. Their incisors grow into tusks, which can serve as weapons and as tools for moving objects, Elephants large ear flaps help to control their body temperature. Their pillar-like legs can carry their great weight, African elephants have larger ears and concave backs while Asian elephants have smaller ears and convex or level backs. Elephants are herbivorous and can be found in different habitats including savannahs, forests and they prefer to stay near water.
They are considered to be keystone species due to their impact on their environments, other animals tend to keep their distance from elephants while predators, such as lions, tigers and wild dogs, usually target only young elephants. Females tend to live in groups, which can consist of one female with her calves or several related females with offspring. The groups are led by a known as the matriarch. Elephants have a society in which multiple family groups come together to socialise. Males leave their family groups when they reach puberty and may live alone or with other males, calves are the centre of attention in their family groups and rely on their mothers for as long as three years. Elephants can live up to 70 years in the wild and they communicate by touch, sight and sound, elephants use infrasound, and seismic communication over long distances. Elephant intelligence has been compared with that of primates and cetaceans and they appear to have self-awareness and show empathy for dying or dead individuals of their kind.
African elephants are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature while the Asian elephant is classed as endangered, one of the biggest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks. Other threats to elephants include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people. Elephants are used as working animals in Asia, in the past, they were used in war, they are often controversially put on display in zoos, or exploited for entertainment in circuses. Elephants are highly recognisable and have featured in art, religion, literature
Malaysia
Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government, with a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia, located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, the first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946, Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957.
Malaya united with North Borneo and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia, less than two years in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. The country is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, which plays a role in politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians. The constitution declares Islam the state religion while allowing freedom of religion for non-Muslims, the government system is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the prime minister, since its independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of 6. 5% per annum for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, commerce.
Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked third largest in Southeast Asia, the name Malaysia is a combination of the word Malay and the Latin-Greek suffix -sia/-σία. The word melayu in Malay may derive from the Tamil words malai and ur meaning mountain and city, malayadvipa was the word used by ancient Indian traders when referring to the Malay Peninsula. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word melayu or mlayu may have used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to steadily accelerate or run. This term was applied to describe the current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Pinterest, Uber, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings.
The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849.
The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
Spider monkey
Spider monkeys of the genus Ateles are New World monkeys in the subfamily Atelinae, family Atelidae. Like other atelines, they are found in forests of Central and South America. The genus contains seven species, all of which are under threat, the spider monkey. Disproportionately long limbs and long tails make them one of the largest New World monkeys. Spider monkeys live in the layers of the rainforest, and forage in the high canopy. They primarily eat fruits, but will occasionally consume leaves, flowers. Due to their size, spider monkeys require large tracts of moist evergreen forests. They are social animals and live in bands of up to 35 individuals, recent meta-analyses on primate cognition studies indicated spider monkeys are the most intelligent New World monkeys. They can produce a range of sounds and will bark when threatened, other vocalisations include a whinny similar to a horse. They are an important food source due to their size, so are widely hunted by local human populations, they are threatened by habitat destruction due to logging.
Spider monkeys are susceptible to malaria and are used in studies of the disease. The population trend for spider monkeys is decreasing, the IUCN Red List lists one species as vulnerable, four species as endangered and this theory is not supported by fossil evidence. Other theories include Brachyteles and Ateles in an unresolved trichotomy, more recent molecular evidence suggests the Atelinae split in the middle to late Miocene, separating spider monkeys from the woolly spider monkeys and the woolly monkeys. The genus contains seven species, and seven subspecies.66 kg for females, disproportionately long, spindly limbs inspired the spider monkeys common name. Their deftly prehensile tails, which may be up to 89 cm long, have flexible, hairless tips. This adaptation to their arboreal lifestyle serves as a fifth hand. When the monkey walks, its arms practically drag on the ground, unlike many monkeys, they do not use their arms for balance when walking, instead relying on their tails. The hands are long and hook-like, and have reduced thumbs, the fingers are elongated and recurved
Zoo
A zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may breed. The term zoological garden refers to zoology, the study of animals, the abbreviation zoo was first used of the London Zoological Gardens, which was opened for scientific study in 1828 and to the public in 1857. The number of animal collections open to the public around the world now exceeds to 1,000. In the United States of America alone, zoos are visited by over 180 million people annually, London Zoo, which opened in 1826, first called itself a menagerie or zoological forest, which is short for Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society of London. The term zoological park was used for more facilities in Washington, D. C. and the Bronx in New York. Relatively new terms for zoos coined in the late 20th century are conservation park or biopark, adopting a new name is a strategy used by some zoo professionals to distance their institutions from the stereotypical and nowadays criticized zoo concept of the 19th century.
The term biopark was first coined and developed by the National Zoo in Washington D. C. in the late 1980s, in 1993, the New York Zoological Society changed its name to the Wildlife Conservation Society and rebranded the zoos under its jurisdiction as wildlife conservation parks. The predecessor of the garden is the menagerie, which has a long history from the ancient world to modern times. The oldest known collection was revealed during excavations at Hierakonpolis, Egypt in 2009. The exotic animals included hippopotami, elephants, King Ashur-bel-kala of the Middle Assyrian Empire created zoological and botanical gardens in the 11th century BCE. In the 2nd century BCE, the Chinese Empress Tanki had a house of deer built, other well-known collectors of animals included King Solomon of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah, queen Semiramis and King Ashurbanipal of Assyria, and King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. By the 4th century BCE, zoos existed in most of the Greek city states, the Roman emperors kept private collections of animals for study or for use in the arena, the latter faring notoriously poorly.
The 19th-century historian W. E. H. Lecky wrote of the Roman games, first held in 366 BCE, At one time, a bear, four hundred bears were killed in a single day under Caligula. Under Nero, four hundred tigers fought with bulls and elephants, in a single day, at the dedication of the Colosseum by Titus, five thousand animals perished. Lions, elephants, hippopotami, bulls, even crocodiles, henry I of England kept a collection of animals at his palace in Woodstock, which reportedly included lions and camels. The most prominent collection in medieval England was in the Tower of London and it was opened to the public during the reign of Elizabeth I in the 16th century. During the 18th century, the price of admission was three half-pence, or the supply of a cat or dog for feeding to the lions, the animals were moved to the London Zoo when it opened. The oldest zoo in the still in existence is the Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna
Aviary
An aviary is a large enclosure for confining birds. Unlike cages, aviaries allow birds a larger living space where they can fly, aviaries often contain plants and shrubbery to simulate a natural environment. Large aviaries are often found in the setting of a zoological garden, spacious walk-in aviaries exist in bird parks such as Jurong BirdPark in Singapore. Pittsburgh is home to the USAs National Aviary, perhaps the most prominent example in North America of an aviary not set inside a zoo, the Tracy Aviary is an example of a bird park within a public urban park, Liberty Park in Salt Lake City, Utah. Some public aquaria, such as the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Oregon, the Raven Cage in 1829, is regarded as one of the oldest structures in the London Zoo. The first large aviary inside a garden was established in 1880 in the setting of the [[Diergaarde Blijdorp|Rotterdam Zoo by white girl isabella fields. In 1902, a cage was completed in the setting of the National Zoological Park of the Smithsonian Institution.
A new Great Flying Cage was built in 1964, the Saint Louis Zoo is home to the 1904 Worlds Fair Flight Cage. It is one of two permanent structures built for the Worlds Fair which still remain. In 1904, it was the largest bird cage ever built and it remains one of the worlds largest free-flight aviaries. The 69 m long,26 m wide, and 15 m high cage was built by the Smithsonian Institution specifically for the St. Louis Worlds Fair, local pride in the giant cage motivated St. Louis to finally establish a zoo in 1910. In 1937, the San Diego Zoos aviary designed by architect Louis John Gill opened, with the Antwerp cage system, birds are only separate from public with a light system used indoor the Bird Building at Antwerp Zoo. At the Frankfurt Zoo, the house was built in 1969. Its Bird Halls presented birds for the first time in large glassed miniature habitats, in diving exhibits and kingfishers could be seen hunting under water, and in the free-flight hall visitors still walk amongst tropical birds in dense vegetation.
The Snowdon Aviary in London Zoo was designed by Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, Cedric Price and Frank Newby, the Bronx Zoos World of Birds, a two-story bird house completed in 1972, is a huge, indoor free-flight exhibit. The one-way flow pattern in the moves the visitors through twenty-five birds habitats. Each setting recreates with impressive fidelity the microculture of the birds that fly merrily about within their diorama world, five of the aviaries are completely open, in two of the largest the uncaged public walks through the habitat with birds freely overhead. The Henry Doorly Zoos Simmons Aviary opened in 1983 and is one of the worlds largest free-flight aviaries, about 500 birds from all parts of the world occupy the area of the aviary
Monkey
Monkeys are haplorhine primates, a group generally possessing tails and consisting of about 260 known living species. There are two lineages of monkeys, New World Monkeys and catarrhines. Apes emerged within the catarrhines with the Old World monkeys as a sister group, traditionally apes are not considered monkeys, rendering this grouping paraphyletic. The equivalent monophyletic clade are the simians, many monkey species are tree-dwelling, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Most species are active during the day. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent, particularly Old World monkeys, lemurs and galagos are not monkeys, instead they are strepsirrhine primates. Like monkeys, tarsiers are haplorhine primates, they are not monkeys. There are two types of monkey, New World monkeys from South and Central America and Old World monkeys from Africa. Hominoid apes, which all lack tails, are catarrhines but are not considered monkeys and tarsiers emerged within haplorrhines some 60 million years ago.
New World monkeys and catarrhine monkeys emerged within the simians some 35 millions years ago, Old World monkeys and Hominoidea emerged within the catarrhine monkeys some 25 millions years ago. Extinct basal simians such as Aegyptopithecus or Parapithecus are considered monkeys by primatologists, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word monkey may originate in a German version of the Reynard the Fox fable, published circa 1580. In this version of the fable, a character named Moneke is the son of Martin the Ape, the terms monkey and ape are widely used interchangeably. Also, a few species have the word ape in their common name. Monkeys thus constituted a grade on the path to humans and were distinguished from apes, scientific classifications are now more often based on monophyletic groups, that is groups consisting of all the descendants of a common ancestor. The New World monkeys and the Old World monkeys are each monophyletic groups, thus the term monkey no longer refers to a recognized scientific taxon.
The smallest accepted taxon which contains all the monkeys is the infraorder Simiiformes, however this contains the hominoids, so that monkeys are, in terms of currently recognized taxa, non-hominoid simians. Colloquially and pop-culturally, the term is ambiguous and sometimes monkey includes non-human hominoids, in addition, frequent arguments are made for a monophyletic usage of the word monkey from the perspective that usage should reflect cladistics. A group of monkeys may be referred to as a tribe or a troop
United States
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power.
The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations.
In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
Lion
The lion is one of the big cats in the genus Panthera and a member of the family Felidae. The commonly used term African lion collectively denotes the several subspecies in Africa, with some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in sub-Saharan Africa and in India, in ancient historic times, their range was in most of Africa, including North Africa, and across Eurasia from Greece and southeastern Europe to India. Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks, although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes of concern. Within Africa, the West African lion population is particularly endangered, in the wild, males seldom live longer than 10 to 14 years, as injuries sustained from continual fighting with rival males greatly reduce their longevity. In captivity they can more than 20 years. They typically inhabit savanna and grassland, although they may take to bush, Lions are unusually social compared to other cats. A pride of lions consists of related females and offspring and a number of adult males.
Groups of female lions typically hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates, Lions are apex and keystone predators, although they are expert scavengers obtaining over 50 percent of their food by scavenging as opportunity allows. While lions do not typically hunt humans, some have, sleeping mainly during the day, lions are active primarily at night, although sometimes at twilight. Highly distinctive, the lion is easily recognised by its mane. It has been depicted in sculptures, in paintings, on national flags. Lions have been kept in menageries since the time of the Roman Empire, Zoos are cooperating worldwide in breeding programs for the endangered Asiatic subspecies. The lions name, similar in many Romance languages, is derived from the Latin leo, the Hebrew word לָבִיא may be related. It was one of the originally described by Linnaeus, who gave it the name Felis leo, in his eighteenth-century work. The lions closest relatives are the species of the genus Panthera, the tiger, the snow leopard, the jaguar. P.
leo evolved in Africa between 1 million and 800,000 years ago, before spreading throughout the Holarctic region and it appeared in the fossil record in Europe for the first time 700,000 years ago with the subspecies Panthera leo fossilis at Isernia in Italy. From this lion derived the cave lion, which appeared about 300,000 years ago, Lions died out in northern Eurasia at the end of the last glaciation, about 10,000 years ago, this may have been secondary to the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna
Emu
The emu is the second-largest living bird by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird, the emus range covers most of mainland Australia, but the Tasmanian emu and King Island emu subspecies became extinct after the European settlement of Australia in 1788. The bird is common for it to be rated as a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Emus are soft-feathered, flightless birds with long necks and legs, Emus can travel great distances, and when necessary can sprint at 50 km/h, they forage for a variety of plants and insects, but have been known to go for weeks without eating. They drink infrequently, but take in copious amounts of water when the opportunity arises, breeding takes place in May and June, and fighting among females for a mate is common. Females can mate several times and lay clutches of eggs in one season. The male does the incubation, during this process he hardly eats or drinks, the eggs hatch after around eight weeks, and the young are nurtured by their fathers.
They reach full size after around six months, but can remain as a unit until the next breeding season. The emu is an important cultural icon of Australia, appearing on the coat of arms, the bird features prominently in Indigenous Australian mythology. The birds were known on the eastern coast before 1788, when the first Europeans settled there, total length seven feet two inches. The long spines which are seen in the wings of the sort, are in this not observable. The legs are stout, formed much as in the Galeated Cassowary, the species was named by ornithologist John Latham in 1790 based on a specimen from the Sydney area of Australia, a country which was known as New Holland at the time. In his original 1816 description of the emu, the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot used two names, first Dromiceius and Dromaius. Most modern publications, including those of the Australian government, use Dromaius, another theory is that it comes from the word ema, which is used in Portuguese to denote a large bird akin to an ostrich or crane.
In Victoria, some terms for the emu were Barrimal in the Dja Dja Wurrung language, myoure in Gunai, the birds were known as murawung or birabayin to the local Eora and Darug inhabitants of the Sydney basin. The emu was long classified, with its closest relatives the cassowaries, in the family Casuariidae, however, an alternate classification was proposed in 2014 by Mitchell et al. based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA. This splits off the Casuariidae into their own order, the Casuariformes, the cladogram shown below is from their study. Two different Dromaius species were present in Australia at the time of European settlement, the insular dwarf emus, D. baudinianus and D. n. minor, originally present on Kangaroo Island and King Island respectively, both became extinct shortly after the arrival of Europeans
African buffalo
The African buffalo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the larger wild water buffalo of Asia. Syncerus caffer caffer, the Cape buffalo, is the subspecies. S. c. nanus is the smallest subspecies, common in forest areas of Central and West Africa, while S. c. brachyceros is in West Africa and S. c. aequinoctialis is in the savannas of Central Africa. The adult buffalos horns are its characteristic feature, they have fused bases and they are widely regarded as very dangerous animals, as they gore and kill over 200 people every year. The African buffalo is not an ancestor of cattle and is only distantly related to other larger bovines. Owing to its nature, which makes it highly dangerous to humans, the African buffalo has never been domesticated, unlike its Asian counterpart. Other than humans, African Cape buffaloes have few predators aside from lions and large crocodiles, being a member of the big five game, the Cape buffalo is a sought-after trophy in hunting.
The African buffalo is a very robust species and its shoulder height can range from 1.0 to 1.7 m and its head-and-body length can range from 1.7 to 3.4 m. Compared with other bovids, it has a long but stocky body and short but thickset legs. The tail can range from 70 to 110 cm long, savannah-type buffaloes weigh 500 to 1,000 kg, with males normally larger than females, reaching the upper weight range. In comparison, forest-type buffaloes, at 250 to 450 kg, are half that size. Its head is carried low, its top is located below the backline. The front hooves of the buffalo are wider than the rear, which is associated with the need to support the weight of the front part of the body, savannah-type buffaloes have black or dark brown coats with age. Old bulls have whitish circles around their eyes, females tend to have more-reddish coats. Forest-type buffaloes are reddish brown in colour with horns that curve back, calves of both types have red coats. A characteristic feature of the horns of adult male African buffalo is fusion of their bases, from the base, the horns diverge downwards, smoothly curve upwards and outwards.
In large bulls, the distance between the ends of the horns can reach upwards of one metre, the horns form fully when the animal reaches the age of five or six years
46th Ave. and Wawona 
Media related to San Francisco Zoo at Wikimedia Commons