''Bubalus fudi'' is an extinct relative of

water buffalo The water buffalo (''Bubalus bubalis''), 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 Europe, Australia, North America, So ...

, which survived in the late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

Discovery

The

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

of ''Bubalus fudi'' was discovered by a company (Beijing Fudi Investment Co., Ltd) in 2002 while digging the foundations of a building near

Haidian District Haidian District () is a district of the municipality of Beijing. It is mostly situated in northwestern Beijing, but also to a lesser extent in the west, where it has borders with Xicheng District and Fengtai District. It is 431 square km in a ...

Qinghe railway station Qinghe railway station () is a railway station in Beijing. The old station began its construction in 1905 and opened in 1906. The station closed on October 31, 2016, to be rebuilt into a new high-speed railway station on the Beijing-Baotou Pas ...

. It was a complete skull fossil and published by researchers in 2008 as a new species. Researchers use the company's name (Fudi) as the

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

of the species. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

was collected by the company. Researchers think that the appearance of species is close to '' Bubalus youngi''. The horns are both strong and there are no obvious back bump on the skull

occipital bone The occipital bone () is a neurocranium, cranial dermal bone and the main bone of the occiput (back and lower part of the skull). It is trapezoidal in shape and curved on itself like a shallow dish. The occipital bone overlies the occipital lobe ...

, but the occipital bone position is higher than ''Bubalus youngi''. The results of the analysis of

phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek language, Greek wikt:φυλή, φυλή/wikt:φῦλον, φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary his ...

based on skull characteristics showed that ''Bubalus fudi'' was a

sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and t ...

of ''Bubalus youngi'', '' Bubalus triangulus'' and the

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

of the living bubalus, while the clade of the four was the sister group of '' Bubalus wansijocki''. In 2014, some scholars proposed that ''Bubalus fudi'' should be regarded as a

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

of ''Bubalus wansijocki''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q105501185 Bovines Pleistocene Fossils of China

Discovery

See also

References