The American bison (Bison bison; : bison), commonly known as the American buffalo, or simply buffalo (not to be confused with true buffalo), is a species of bison that is endemic to North America. It is one of two extant species of bison, along with the European bison. Its historical range circa 9000 BC is referred to as the great bison belt, a tract of rich grassland spanning from Alaska south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Seaboard (nearly to the Atlantic tidewater in some areas), as far north as New York, south to Georgia, and according to some sources, further south to northern Florida, with sightings in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as 1750.
Two subspecies or ecotypes have been described: the plains bison (B. b. bison), smaller and with a more rounded hump; and the wood bison (B. b. athabascae), the larger of the two and having a taller, square hump. There has been a proposal to divide the plains bison into subspecies of northern (B. b. montanae) and southern (B. b. bison), but this proposal has limited scientific support. The wood bison is one of the largest wild species of extant bovid in the world, surpassed only by the Asian gaur. With wild animals weighing up to , the bison is among the heaviest extant land animals in North America and the heaviest herbivore.
Once roaming in vast herds, the species nearly became extinct by a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century and introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle. With an estimated population of 60 million in the late 18th century, the species was reduced to 541 animals by 1889 as part of the genocide of the Native Americans, because the American bison was a major resource for their traditional way of life (food source, hides for clothing and shelter, and horns and bones for tools). Recovery efforts expanded in the mid-20th century, with a resurgence to roughly 31,000 wild bison as of March 2019. For many years, the population was primarily found in a few national parks and reserves. As a result of multiple reintroductions, the species freely roams wild in several regions in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Others are kept in smaller natural areas as conservation herds, while some are also kept in private commercial herds. The American bison has also been introduced in Russia, with a population established in Ingilor Nature Park in Yakutia.
Spanning back millennia, Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains have had cultural and spiritual connections to the American bison. It is the national mammal of the United States.
Etymology
In American English, both buffalo and bison are considered correct terms for the American bison. However, in British English, the word buffalo is reserved for the African buffalo and water buffalo and not used for the bison.
In English usage, the term buffalo was used to refer to the American mammal as early as 1625.The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition: The word bison was applied in the 1690s.
Buffalo was applied to the American bison by Samuel de Champlain as the French word buffles in 1616 (published 1619), after seeing skins and a drawing. These were shown to him by members of the Nipissing First Nation, who said they traveled forty days (from east of Lake Huron) to trade with another nation who hunted the animals.Champlain, Samuel, Henry P. Biggar. 1929. The Works of Samuel de Champlain, vol 3. Toronto: Champlain Society. p. 105. Buffel in turn comes from Portuguese bufalo (water buffalo), which comes from Latin bufalus (an antelope, gazelle, or wild ox), from Greek boubalos. The same Greek word boubalos is also the origin for the Bubal hartebeest.
Bison was borrowed from French bison in the early 17th century, from Latin bison (aurochs), from a Proto-Germanic word similar to wisent and, per Etymonline, first applied to American buffalo in the 1690s.
In Plains Indian languages in general, male and female bison are distinguished, with each having a different designation rather than there being a single generic word covering both sexes. Thus: in Arapaho: (bison cow), (bison bull) in Lakota: (bison cow), (bison bull) Such a distinction is not a general feature of the language (for example, Arapaho possesses gender-neutral terms for other large mammals such as elk, mule deer, etc.), and so presumably is due to the special significance of the bison in Plains Indian life and culture.
Description
A bison has a shaggy, long, dark-brown winter coat, and a lighter-weight, lighter-brown summer coat. Male bison are significantly larger and heavier than females. Plains bison are often in the smaller range of sizes, and wood bison in the larger range. Head-rump lengths at maximum up to for males and for females long and the tail adding . Heights at withers in the species can reach up to for B. b. bison and B. b. athabascae respectively. Typically weights can range from , with medians of (B.b. bison) and (B.b.athabascae) in males, and with medians of in females, although the lowest weights probably representing typical weight around the age of sexual maturity at 2 to 3 years of age.
The heaviest wild bull for B.b.bison ever recorded weighed while there had been bulls estimated to be . B.b.athabascae is significantly larger and heavier on average than B.b.bison while the number of recorded samples for the former was limited after the rediscovery of a relatively pure herd. Elk Island National Park, which has wild populations of both wood and plains bison, has recorded maximum weights for bull bison of (plains) and (wood), but noted that three-quarters of all bison over were wood bison. When raised in captivity and farmed for meat, the bison can grow unnaturally heavy and the largest semidomestic bison weighed . The heads and forequarters are massive, and both sexes have short, curved horns that can grow up to long with to width, which they use in fighting for status within the herd and for defense.
For the first two months of life, calves are lighter in color than mature bison. Though extremely rare, white buffalos exist.
Evolution Bison are members of the tribe Bovini. Genetic evidence from nuclear DNA indicates that the closest living relatives of bison are yaks, with bison being nested within the genus Bos, rendering Bos without including bison paraphyletic. While nuclear DNA indicates that the two living bison species are each other's closest living relatives, the mitochondrial DNA of European bison is more closely related to that of domestic cattle and aurochs, which is suggested to be the result of either incomplete lineage sorting or ancient introgression.
Bison first appeared in Asia during the Early Pleistocene, around 2.6 million years ago. Bison only arrived in North America 195,000 to 135,000 years ago, during the late Middle Pleistocene, descending from the widespread Siberian steppe bison (Bison priscus), which had migrated through Beringia. Following their first appearance in North America, the bison rapidly differentiated into new species, such as the largest of all bison, the long-horned Bison latifrons, along with Bison antiquus. The first appearance of bison in North America is considered to define the regional Rancholabrean faunal stage, due to its major impact on the ecology of the continent. Modern American bison are thought to have evolved from B. antiquus at the end of the Late Pleistocene - beginning of the Holocene, with likely intermediates between the species referred to as Bison "occidentalis". The North American bison population experienced demographic stability during the Middle Holocene but began a slow decline in the Late Holocene beginning about 2,700 BP.
Differences from European bison
Although they are superficially similar, the American and European bison exhibit a number of physical and behavioral differences. Adult American bison are slightly heavier on average because of their less rangy build and have shorter legs, which render them slightly shorter at the shoulder.Trophy Bowhunting: Plan the Hunt of a Lifetime and Bag One for the Record Books, by Rick Sapp, Edition: illustrated, published by Stackpole Books, 2006, , American bison tend to graze more and browse less than their European relatives because their necks are set differently. Compared to the nose of the American bison, that of the European species is set farther forward than the forehead when the neck is in a neutral position. The body of the American bison is hairier, though its tail has less hair than that of the European bison. The horns of the European bison point forward through the plane of its face, making it more adept at fighting through the interlocking of horns in the same manner as domestic cattle, unlike the American bison, which favors charging. American bison are more easily tamed than the European and breed more readily with domestic cattle.Newman, Edward and James Edmund Harting (1859). Zoologist: A Monthly Journal of Natural History Published by J. Van Voorst.
Crossbreeding with cattle During the population bottleneck, after the great slaughter of American bison during the 19th century, the number of bison remaining alive in North America declined to as low as 541. During that period, a handful of ranchers gathered remnants of the existing herds to save the species from extinction. These ranchers bred some of the bison with cattle in an effort to produce "cattalo" or "beefalo". Accidental crossing was also known to occur. Generally, male domestic bulls were crossed with bison cows, producing offspring of which only the females were fertile. The crossbred animals did not demonstrate any form of hybrid vigor, so the practice was abandoned. The proportion of cattle DNA that has been measured in introgressed individuals and bison herds is typically quite low, ranging from 0.56 to 1.8%. Many claimed "beefalo", even those regarded as pedigree, have no detectable bison ancestry. In the United States, many ranchers use DNA testing to cull the residual cattle genetics from their bison herds. The U.S. National Bison Association has adopted a code of ethics which prohibits its members from deliberately crossbreeding bison with any other species.
Range and population
Population estimates in 2010 ranged from 400,000 to 500,000, with approximately 20,500 animals in 62 conservation herds and the remainder in approximately 6,400 commercial herds. According to the IUCN, roughly 15,000 bison are considered wild, free-range bison not primarily confined by fencing.
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has reintroduced bison to over a dozen nature preserves around the United States. In October 2016, TNC established its easternmost bison herd in the country, at Kankakee Sands nature preserve in Morocco, Newton County, Indiana. In 2014, U.S. Tribes and Canadian First Nations signed a treaty to help with the restoration of bison, the first to be signed in nearly 150 years.
Habitat and trails