Steppe bison

The steppe bison or steppe wisent (Bison priscus)"Steppe Bison" – Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre. Beringia.com. Retrieved on 2013-05-31. is an extinct species of bison that was once found on the mammoth steppe where its range included British Isles,Kirkdale Cave (Pleistocene of the United Kingdom) Europe,Вестник Кирилло-Белозерского музея 9 (Май 2006) О. Яшина, Т.В. Цветкова – Кирилловский бизон. Kirmuseum.ru. Retrieved on 2013-05-31. Central Asia, Northern to Northeastern Asia,Yeong-Seok Jo, John T. Baccus, John Koprowski, 2018, Mammals of Korea, p.30, National Institute of Biological Resources of Korea Beringia, and central North America, from northwest Canada to Mexico during the Quaternary. This wide distribution is sometimes called the Pleistocene bison belt compared to the Great bison belt.Hunting the Extinct Steppe Bison (Bison priscus) Mitochondrial Genome in the Trois-Frères Paleolithic Painted Cave The radiocarbon dating of a steppe bison skeleton indicates that it was present 5,400 years ago in Alaska. Three chronological subspecies, Bison priscus priscus, Bison priscus mediator, and Bison priscus gigas, have been suggested.
==Evolution==
The steppe bison is believed to have evolved from Bison palaeosinensis in South Asia, which means the species appeared at roughly the same time and region as the aurochs (Bos primigenius) with which its descendants are sometimes confused. The steppe bison was eventually contemporaneous with the Pleistocene woodland bison (B. schoetensacki) and the European bison (Bison bonasus) in Europe, Bison hanaizumiensis in Japan,Bison hanaizumiensis - TrekGEO and the long-horned bison (Bison latifrons) in North America.
The steppe bison became extinct possibly in the middle to the late Holocene, as it was replaced in Europe by the modern European bison (B. bonasus) and in America by a sequence of several species (such as Bison antiquus and Bison occidentalis) culminating in the modern American bison (Bison bison). European cave paintings appear to depict both B. bonasus and B. priscus.
Resembling the modern bison species, especially the American wood bison (Bison bison athabascae), the steppe bison was over 2 m tall at the withers, reaching 900 kg (2,000 lb) in weight. The tips of the horns were a meter apart, the horns themselves being over half a meter long.
==Discoveries==
Steppe bison appear in cave art, notably in the Cave of Altamira and Lascaux, and the carving Bison Licking Insect Bite, and have been found in naturally ice-preserved form.
Blue Babe is the 36,000-year-old mummy of a male steppe bison which was discovered north of Fairbanks, Alaska, in July 1979.Deem, James M. "Blue Babe - the 36,000 year-old male bison" James M. Deem's Mummy Tombs. 1988-2012. Accessed 20 March 2012. The mummy was noticed by a gold miner who named the mummy Blue Babe – "Babe" for Paul Bunyan's mythical giant ox, permanently turned blue when he was buried to the horns in a blizzard (Blue Babe's own bluish cast was caused by a coating of vivianite, a blue iron phosphate covering much of the specimen). Blue Babe is also frequently referenced when talking about scientists eating their own specimens: the research team that was preparing it for permanent display in the University of Alaska Museum removed a portion of the mummy's neck, stewed it, and dined on it to celebrate the accomplishment.
In 2011, a 9,300-year-old mummy was found at Yukagir in Siberia.
In 2016, a frozen tail was discovered in the north of the Republic of Sakha in Russia. The exact age was not clear, but tests showed it was not younger than 8,000 years old. A team of Russian and South Korean scientists proposed extracting DNA from the specimen and cloning it in the future. 
== References ==
Category:Prehistoric bovids
Category:Holocene extinctions
Category:Prehistoric even-toed ungulates
Category:Prehistoric mammals of North America
Category:Quaternary mammals of Asia
Category:Pleistocene mammals of Europe
Category:Pleistocene mammals of Asia
Category:Pleistocene mammals of North America
Category:Mammals described in 1827
Category:Fossil taxa described in 1827
Category:Pleistocene first appearances
Category:Taxa named by Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus