Tamaraw

The tamaraw is a small, stocky wild buffalo found only on Mindoro, and the only bovine native to the Philippines. It is dark brown to grey-black and hairier than the water buffalo, with white markings on the hooves and the inner lower forelegs, white inside the ears, and two pale grey stripes running from the inner corner of each eye towards the horns. Both sexes carry short, black, flat-sided horns, 35–51cm long, set in a V shape rather than the C-shaped sweep of the water buffalo. It is not a subspecies of the water buffalo or the carabao (Wikipedia, general species account).

Tamaraw are reclusive and shy away from people. Bulls are mostly solitary; cows are alone or have as many as three subadults with them, and the largest reported groups number 10–11 animals. They graze in open grass by day, though at Mount Iglit they appear to use open areas more at night where hunting is heavy. A single calf is born after roughly ten months, mostly in the rainy season between June and November (Wikipedia and the Handbook of the Mammals of the World, via GBIF species account).

Mindoro held an estimated 10,000 animals in the early 1900s, about 1,000 by 1949 and fewer than 250 by 1953. By 2000 only two areas remained, Mounts Iglit–Baco National Park and Aruyan. A count at Mounts Iglit–Baco in 2019 found 466 to 494 animals, down from 523 the year before, according to the Tamaraw Conservation Program (Wikipedia, citing published sources). Sightings are never guaranteed: rangers control access to the grassland.