Mountain anoa

The wild dwarf buffalo or anoa is found only on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, where the word anoa locally means buffalo. It has never been domesticated.

The lowland anoa (Bubalus depressicornis) and the mountain anoa (Bubalus quarlesi) are small bovines that are related to the water buffalo but that are scarcely bigger than goats.

Compared with other bovines, the anoa is tiny: It stands only 0.75-1 m tall at the shoulder. The mountain anoa is smaller than its lowland counterpart. The limbs are short, the body plump, and the neck thick. Anoa horns are short and straight, reaching a maximum length of 380 mm.

The color dark brown to black in the adults, the hair tending to be thick and wooly; legs dark, like the body, with whitish or yellowish spots above the hoofs, or none at all.

Across the island, local distribution of anoa species remains unclear, as they may occur in forest patches at different altitudes or sympatrically.
Mountain anoa