Bison are large bovid species.
Facts[]
Bison are large, even-toed ungulates in the genus Bison, which is traditionally considered a unique genus but genetic analysis shows that it should be nested within the genus Bos, in the subfamily Bovinae.
There are currently two extant and ten extinct species that are recognized. Of the ten extinct species, three were North American: B. antiquus, B. latifrons, and B. occidentalis; three were Asian species: B. sivalensis, B. palaeosinensis, and B. hanaizumiensis; two were European: B. georgicus and B. menneri; and two were widespread: B. schoetensacki and B. priscus. B. priscus, in particular, had a large range, spanning across steppe environments from Western Europe, through Central Asia, and into North America.
There are two surviving species: the American bison, Bison bison, or buffalo (despite only being distantly related to true buffalos), is the most numerous. It is only found in North America and is composed of two subspecies; the Plains bison (B. b. bison) and the wood bison (B. b. athabascae). The European bison, Bison bonasus, or wisent, is found in Europe and the Caucasus, though overhunting had caused the species to become extinct in the wild in the 1920s. Fortunately, captive breeding programs and reintroduction efforts since then have helped the species recover its numbers.
In Walking with... Series[]
The American bison has appeared in a cameo at the beginning of the last episode of Walking with Beasts, where it was introduced as one of the representative species of the Ice Age (or mammoth) fauna. In reality, American bisons live only in the New World (North America), and so the animal featured there was actually the wisent (Bison bonasus), European cousin of the bison and its closest living relative and Old World (Eurasia) counterpart.