The introduction of new animals into hunter-gatherer societies produces a variety of cultural responses. This article explores the role of rock art in western Arnhem Land, Australia, in helping to mediate contact-period changes in Indigenous society in the nineteenth century. The authors explore etic and emic perspectives on the ‘re-emergence’ of water buffalo into Aboriginal cultural life. Merging archaeological analysis, rock art and ethnographic accounts, the article demonstrates how such artworks were used as a tool for maintaining order in times of dramatic social change. The results of this research have significant implications for understanding how cultural groups and individuals worldwide used rock art during periods of upheaval.

The expansion of the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates (seventh to ninth centuries AD) brought diverse regions from the Indus Valley to the Eurasian Steppe under hegemonic control. An overlooked aspect of this political process is the subsequent translocation of species across ecological zones. This article explores species introduction in the early Islamic world, presenting the first archaeological evidence for domestic water buffalo in the Caucasus—identified using zooarchaeological and ZooMS methods on material from the historical site of Bardhaʿa in Azerbaijan. We contextualise these finds with historical accounts to demonstrate the exploitation of medieval marginal zones and the effects of centralised social reorganisation upon species dispersal.

Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is an important livestock species in many tropical and subtropical regions. In recent decades, the interest in buffalo’s milk have expanded and intensive buffalo farms start to emerge. However, breeding programs and population genetics information for this species is scarce or inexistent. The present study aims to test the suitability of the commercial high-density single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) genotyping panel, the Illumina BovineHD BeadChip, to estimate population genetics parameters, pedigree control and identification of common variants in major production candidate genes. From a total of 777 962 SNPs included in the panel, 20 479 were polymorphic in water buffalo at a call rate of 86% and an average expected heterozygosity (HE) of 0.306. From these, 357 were mapped within or around the flanking regions of several major candidate genes. A principal components analysis identified three different clusters, each representing pure swamp buffalo type, pure river buffalo type and admixed river buffalo. The hybrids between swamp and river buffalo were clearly identified as an intermediary cluster. The suitability of these SNPs data set for parentage and identity testing demonstrated that the combination of just 30 to 50 SNPs were enough to attain high probabilities of parentage exclusion (0.9999) in both types and identity (2.3×10−5 and 2.0×10−7) for river and swamp buffalo, respectively. Our analysis confirms the suitability of the BovineHD BeadChip to assess population structure, hybridization and identity of the water buffalo populations.

Water buffalo Mozzarella cheese is more appreciated in the summer, but milk production is higher during wintertime, as water buffalo are seasonally polyoestrous animals. The aim of the study reported in this Research Communication was to evaluate the effect of the reversing of the calving period on Mozzarella cheese composition and quality traits. Ten batches of Mozzarella cheeses produced during the summer and winter periods were analysed for pH, colour, chemical composition. Seasonal differences were observed for cheese yield (26·66% in winter and 25·61% in summer), moisture content (66·54% in winter and 61·18% in summer) colour and consumer evaluation.

Interspecific hybrid embryos are useful models for the study of maternal-fetal interactions, transmission pattern of species-specific markers and parental contributions to growth and developmental potential of pre-attachment embryos. In an attempt to investigate the possibility of producing hybrid embryos of domestic cattle (Bos taurus) and water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), cattle oocytes were exposed to buffalo sperm and buffalo oocytes were exposed to cattle sperm and the cleavage rate and the post-fertilisation features of hybrid embryos up to the blastocyst stage were compared with those of buffalo and cattle embryos. The cleavage rate in buffalo oocytes exposed to cattle sperm was low (40.8%), with only 8.8% of these hybrid embryos reaching the blastocyst stage. Cattle oocytes exposed to buffalo sperm showed 86.3% cleavage, while 25.9% of these attained the blastocyst stage. The speed of development of both types of hybrids was intermediate between that of cattle and buffalo embryos, with hatching occurring on day 7.5 in hybrid embryos, day 8-9 in cattle and day 7 in buffalo. The proportions of cells contributing to the trophectoderm and the inner cell mass were closer to those of the maternal species in both types of hybrid embryos. Our results indicate that cattle-water buffalo hybrid embryos produced using interspecies gametes are capable of developing to advanced blastocyst stages and that their in vitro fate, and developmental potential, are influenced by the origin of the oocyte.

Molecular biology techniques have been used for species identification in food of animal origin in relatively recent years. A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based method, the multiplex PCR, was recently applied to species identification in meat and meat products. It allows co-amplification of separate regions of a single gene or specific fragments, each typical of a different animal species in a single PCR reaction, using different pairs of primers in the same reaction mix. In the present paper, the duplex-PCR technique is proposed to identify bovine and water buffalo DNA in a single PCR assay in milk and mozzarella cheese (a typical Italian cheese, originally made from pure water buffalo milk). Because of its lower cost, undeclared bovine milk is added to water buffalo milk for making different kinds of mozzarella cheese. The results of this experiment indicate the applicability of this method, which showed an absolute specificity for the two species and a high sensitivity even down to low DNA concentrations (1 pg). In bovine and water buffalo mixtures of both milk and mozzarella cheese, the minimum concentration tested was 1% of bovine in water buffalo milk and water buffalo in bovine milk. The importance of the somatic cell content in raw milk is also discussed with special reference to the evaluation of mixtures (milk or cheese) of the two species.