Onchocerciasis in Cattle and Associated Animals. :\ 



(2) Bos indicus : This term is used as indicating not necessarily 

 a zoological species, but the common domesticated humped cattle 

 of India, etc., often known to naturalists as the Zebu. This name 

 does not appear in Lydekker's catalogue of Ungulate Mammals, a 

 most remarkable omission in view of the fact that ho quotes the 

 names of other domesticated races of bovines in this which purports 

 to be a complete catalogue of Ungulates. The humped Indian cattle 

 are also called Brahman and sacred cattle, and are of several types 

 of varying size and build, and useful in various ways, all having a 

 very large sharply outlined hump on the withers, long ears, and 

 a large loose dewlap and very full throttle. (See Fig. 1.) As to 

 the origin of this form, we are not in a measure concerned, vet 

 the question lias the possibility of considerable interest in regard 

 to the original host and place of origin of Onchocerca gibsoni and its 

 allies. Two views have been held — one that of Blyth, that Africa 

 was the original home of the ancestors of Bos indicus; the other, 

 first suggested by Rutimeyer in 1878 and upheld by Lydekker, and 

 the theory to which evidence strongly points as being correct, that 

 the ancestor of the Zebu is to be found in the Indo-Malay group of 

 •cattle, which includes the Indian gaur (Bos (Bibos) gaurus), of 

 which the Seladang of the Malay Peninsula is a variety (Bos gaurus 

 hubbacki), and the Javan Bantin (Bos (Bibos) banteng — Bos son- 

 daicus). As Lydekker states (1912, p. 153), since Rutimeyer's 

 work, " the range of the Bantin (Bos sondaicus) has been found to 

 extend into upper Burma. . . . and an examination of a large 

 series of skulls and heads leads me to conclude that Rutimeyer was 

 probably right in regarding this species — or possibly a nearly 

 allied extinct type — as the ancestor of the Zebu." There are 

 undoubtedly many hybrids of these two domesticated forms at least 

 in Java, where also a certain admixture is stated to have taken 

 place with the Bantin, and many of them are almost indistinguish- 

 able from the purer domestic breeds, so that at times possibly 

 hybrids are included under one or other of the terms Bos taurus, 

 and especially, Bos indicus. 



(3) Bos (bubalus) bubalis : This is the recognised specific name 

 of the Indian buffalo, water buffalo, Kerabau (in its various forms, 

 e.g., Karibouw), or Arni, see Figure 2. This has thick, short 

 limbs, and a massive neck, a dewlap being absent, its thick black 

 skin carrying sparsely scattered, long, coarse black hair. The 

 head, with its semicircularly curved horns, is carried well forward 

 and low, so that the horns are more or less in the same plane with 

 the neck. Rarely, a pinkish-skinned animal, with white hairs, may 



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