🐃
Cape buffalo
Syncerus caffer
Mammals · Near threatened
vs
🐘
Elephant
Loxodonta africana
Mammals · Endangered
18 clips name both of them
20 million views between them.
Elephant outweighs Cape buffalo 7.1× — 4,565 kg against 646 kg.
To scale
Grid at 1 m
1 m
2 m
3 m
Silhouettes: PhyloPic — Jan A. Venter, Herbert H. T. Prins, David A. Balfour & Rob Slotow (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) (CC BY); others CC0.
Cape buffalo
1.35 m
at the shoulder
Human
1.70 m
full standing height
for scale
Elephant
2.80 m
at the shoulder
Tale of the tape
Body mass
646 kg
🐃 Cape buffalo · COMBINE
4,565 kg
🐘 Elephant · COMBINE
Shoulder height
1.35 m
🐃 Cape buffalo
2.8 m
🐘 Elephant
Body length
2.96 m
🐃 Cape buffalo · COMBINE
7.5 m
🐘 Elephant · COMBINE
Top speed
55 km/h
🐃 Cape buffalo
25 km/h
🐘 Elephant
Maximum lifespan
30 yr
🐃 Cape buffalo · COMBINE
80 yr
🐘 Elephant · COMBINE
Bars are sized against the larger of the two figures.
Animals caught on camera
Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.
Graphic clips stay hidden unless you pick Graphic.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Theria (subclass), home to 9,319 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 91 million years ago.
Estimates range from 78 to 117 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).