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Bison are large bovid species of wild cattle.

Facts[]

Bison are large, even-toed ungulates in the subgenus Bison, which is nested within the genus Bos, in the subfamily Bovinae. While bison where formerly placed in their own genus, a phylogenetic analysis revealed that they are part of the genus Bos, together with cattle, gaur, kouprey, and yaks, their closest living relative.

There are currently two extant and ten extinct species that are recognized. Of the ten extinct species, three were North American: Bos antiquus, B. latifrons, and B. occidentalis; three were Asian species: Bos sivalensis, B. palaeosinensis, and B. hanaizumiensis; two were European: Bos georgicus and B. menneri; and two were widespread: Bos schoetensacki and B. priscus. Bos 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, Bos 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, Bos 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 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, bisons live only in the New World (North America), and so the animal featured there was actually the wisent (Bos bonasus), European cousin of the bison and its closest living relative and Old World (Eurasia) counterpart.

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