African Buffalo
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40 free African Buffalo trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The African buffalo is the member of Africa's Big Five that looks most like a farm animal and behaves least like one. It lives in herds that can run into the thousands, makes group decisions without a sound, and is one of the few grazers that will turn on a pride of lions to get a calf back. This quiz turns the best African buffalo fun facts into multiple-choice questions. It covers how the animal is built, how herds are organised and how calves are raised, along with the birds that travel with it, the diseases that shaped its history, and its conservation status. A few questions step outside the savanna into safari slang, legend, literature and everyday life. It is pitched for safari-goers, wildlife fans and anyone revising for a nature round. Most questions can be reasoned out, and every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a handful of facts worth repeating.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which grim nickname do hunting circles give the African buffalo for its grumpy, unpredictable temper?
Black Death
Black Death is hunters' shorthand for an animal that can blindside its pursuers. A buffalo can also run at up to 37 miles per hour.
Q 02The 'Big Five', which includes the African buffalo, first meant the five hardest animals to hunt how?
On foot
On foot was how big-game hunters ranked the lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo as the hardest quarry. Today the five are more often targets for safari cameras.
Q 03In the viral video Battle at Kruger, which predators try to steal a buffalo calf from the lions?
Crocodiles
Crocodiles had a brief tug of war with the lions, then gave up. The herd then returned, tossed a lion into the air and the calf walked back to it alive.
Q 04Which African bird rides on a buffalo's back, eating lice, fleas and other parasites from its skin?
Oxpecker
The oxpecker gets a meal and a lift at once, though it also pecks at wounds to drink blood. Night cameras have even caught the birds roosting on buffalo.
Q 05American bison are often called buffalo, but which feature do they have that the African buffalo lacks?
A beard
A beard is the quick field mark: bison have one and buffalo don't. The two sit in different genera, and early American settlers probably muddled the names.
Q 06Adult female African buffalo 'vote' on where the herd should graze next by doing what while it rests?
Gazing in one direction
Gazing in one direction is a silent ballot: cows stand, stare the way they want to go, then lie back down. If the vote is split, the herd may split too and rejoin days later.
Q 07The Cape buffalo and the rest of the Big Five have appeared since the 1990s on which South African items?
Banknotes
Banknotes gave each of the Big Five its own value, with the buffalo on the blue 100-rand note. A 2018 commemorative series swapped the animals for scenes from Nelson Mandela's life.
Q 08African buffalo bulls spend hot afternoons wallowing in what, which also rids them of ticks?
Mud
Mud does double duty as coolant and pest control, smothering parasites that latch onto the skin. The smaller forest buffalo wallows more in the dry season.
Q 09Which East African country held an estimated 240,000 Cape buffalo in 2021, more than any other nation?
Tanzania
Tanzania is the Cape buffalo's stronghold, yet it is also one of only two countries where numbers have noticeably dipped since 1998. Zimbabwe is the other.
Q 10The small forest-dwelling African buffalo keeps which coat colour for life, unlike its dark savanna cousin?
Red
Red is the colour many calves start with, and the forest buffalo usually keeps it as an adult. It is also the smallest subspecies, at well under half the weight of a big savanna bull.
Q 11Like domestic cows, African buffalo bring swallowed grass back up to chew again, a habit called chewing what?
Cud
Cud gets a second grinding so the animal can wring more nutrients from tough stems. Feeding and ruminating fill 17 to 19 hours of a buffalo's day.
Q 12Among African buffalo, whose horns can span well over a metre, which animals grow them?
Both sexes
Both sexes are armed, though a cow's horns are narrower and smaller. Calves are born with small stubs that grow straight for the first six to nine months.
Q 13What name is given to the small all-male bands African buffalo bulls form away from the main herd?
Bachelor groups
Q 21In Swahili, a language spoken widely across East Africa, which word means buffalo?
Nyati
Nyati is the everyday Swahili word, with mbogo as a synonym. Shona speakers further south use the very same word, inherited from a shared Bantu root.
Q 22African buffalo calves usually nurse from which position, letting the mother keep moving with the herd?
From behind
From behind, at the hindquarters, a calf can keep feeding while its mother walks on. Nursing bouts shrink from about ten minutes at one month old to five by six months.
Q 23When lions close in, a Cape buffalo often protects its vulnerable hindquarters by doing what?
Backing into a thicket
Bachelor groups let worn-out bulls recover on grazing the big herds can't reach. Young males join one at four or five, then return to a herd to compete for mates.
Q 14A big Cape buffalo bull, the largest kind of African buffalo, can weigh roughly how much?
900 kg
900 kg is the top of the usual range for a bull, while cows reach about 500 kg. A newborn calf weighs roughly 30 to 40 kg.
Q 15Which livestock disease, eradicated worldwide in 2011, killed up to 95% of African buffalo in the 1890s?
Rinderpest
Rinderpest is only the second disease in history to be wiped out, after smallpox. It reached Africa with imported cattle and crashed buffalo numbers across the continent.
Q 16What name is given to the hard shield where a mature African buffalo bull's horns meet on top of his head?
Boss
Boss is the name for that fused shield, which takes about five years to form and is heaviest in Cape bulls. Two bulls occasionally settle rank by crashing theirs together head-on.
Q 17Which author's 1936 short story ends with Francis Macomber shot dead as he faces a charging Cape buffalo?
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway has Macomber, who fled from a lion the day before, finally stand his ground. His own wife's shot from the car hits him instead of the buffalo.
Q 18Which white bird follows grazing Cape buffalo to catch the insects and small animals they disturb?
Cattle egret
The cattle egret chooses its hosts by walking pace, favouring animals that take about 5 to 15 steps a minute. Buffalo, zebra and wildebeest all fit.
Q 19Orphaned African buffalo calves of four to six months are sometimes taken in by which herd members?
Older cows
Older cows sometimes act as 'nannies', adopting several orphans at once and watching over them like a mother. The calves in turn follow their adoptive mother's lead.
Q 20The IUCN placed the African buffalo in which conservation category as of its 2019 assessment?
Near Threatened
Near Threatened reflects falling numbers: about 400,000 adults remain, and most savanna herds now live inside protected areas or neighbouring hunting zones.
Backing into a thicket leaves the lions only the horned end to deal with. They prefer to attack the rump to pull a buffalo down, so one that keeps facing them often drives them off.
Q 24Which family of cloven-hoofed mammals includes the African buffalo, cattle, sheep, goats and antelopes?
Bovidae
Bovidae members all grow simple, unbranched horns: a bony core under a permanent sheath of keratin. The family's earliest known member lived about 20 million years ago.
Q 25What kind of machine, built by a charity to carry 100 kg loads in rural Africa, is branded the Buffalo?
A bicycle
A bicycle named for the animal's strength and durability: World Bicycle Relief's Buffalo weighs 50 pounds and is assembled in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Kenya.
Q 26Several southern African countries fence off wildlife areas because wild buffalo carry which livestock disease?
Foot-and-mouth
Foot-and-mouth lingers in wild buffalo, which stops whole countries from being declared free of it for meat exports. The veterinary fences are criticised for disrupting wildlife movement.
Q 27African buffalo are a maintenance host for the bacterium that causes which disease, a threat to nearby cattle?
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis can spread from infected buffalo to livestock, one reason ranchers see wild herds as a threat. Buffalo bred to be disease-free fetch very high prices in South Africa.
Q 28By clearing tall grass for the short-grass grazers that follow, African buffalo earn which ecological label?
Ecosystem engineer
Ecosystem engineer fits because a herd reshapes its own landscape. Buffalo can live off grass that most other grazers cannot reach or chew, leaving shorter pasture in their wake.
Q 29Before a herd enters unfamiliar ground, an African buffalo 'pathfinder' stands apart for minutes doing what?
Listening and smelling the air
Listening and smelling the air, for up to eight minutes, tells the scout whether a threat is near. It then leads the herd forward, heads a different way or simply stays put.
Q 30The African buffalo is the only living species in which genus, kept apart from Asia's water buffalo?
Syncerus
Syncerus split from the Asian buffaloes some six to ten million years ago. Its extinct members include a giant whose horns could measure three metres from tip to tip.