African Buffalo

African buffalo make collective decisions through a voting mechanism—one of the clearest examples of democracy in animals. When the herd prepares to move, individuals stand, face their preferred direction, and lie down. The direction with the most 'votes' becomes the group's travel direction. This aggregation of preferences creates group decisions without central direction.

The voting system weights participation, not dominance. Adult females vote most consistently; males and subadults participate less. The system doesn't simply follow dominant individuals—subordinate votes count. This democratic weighting produces movement decisions that satisfy more group members than following a single leader would.

Collective rescue behavior suggests group-level interests. When lions attack a buffalo, nearby herd members sometimes charge to rescue the victim—even at risk to themselves. Videos of buffalo herds driving off lions from captured individuals demonstrate coordinated collective defense that benefits the victim at cost to rescuers.

Herd size affects predation vulnerability. Larger herds experience lower per-capita predation because collective vigilance and defense scale with numbers. This creates incentives for herd cohesion—leaving the group increases individual risk. The group provides genuine protection that self-interest alone wouldn't create.

For organizations, buffalo demonstrate that democratic decision-making can produce better collective outcomes than autocratic leadership. Aggregating preferences captures distributed information that any single leader would miss.