Bison

**Bison** are large bovines in the genus ***Bison*** (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon|extant and numerous extinction|extinct species are recognised.

Of the two surviving species, the American bison, *B. bison*, found only in North America, is the more numerous. Although colloquially referred to as a **buffalo** in the United States and Canada, it is only distantly related to the true buffalo. The North American species is composed of two subspecies, the Plains bison, *B. b. bison*, and the wood bison, *B. b. athabascae*, which is the namesake of Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada. A third subspecies, the eastern bison (*B. b. pennsylvanicus*) is no longer considered a valid taxon, being a junior synonym of *B. b. bison*. References to "woods bison" or "wood bison" from the eastern United States refer to this subspecies, not *B. b. athabascae*, which was not found in the region. The European bison, *B. bonasus*, or wisent, or zubr, or colloquially European buffalo, is found in Europe and the Caucasus, reintroduced after being extinct in the wild.

While bison species have been traditionally classified in their own genus, modern genetics indicates that they are nested within the genus *Bos,* which includes, among others, cattle, yaks and gaur, being most closely related to yaks. Bison are sometimes bred with domestic cattle and produce offspring called beefalo or zubron.

## Description

Bison are nomadic Grazing|grazers and travel in herds. The bulls leave the herds of females at two or three years of age, and join a herd of males, which are generally smaller than female herds. Mature bulls rarely travel alone. Towards the end of the summer, for the reproductive season, the sexes necessarily commingle.

American bison are known for living in the Great Plains, but formerly had a much larger range, including much of the eastern United States and parts of Mexico. Both species were hunted close to extinction during the 19th and 20th centuries, but have since rebounded. The wisent in part owes its survival to the Chernobyl disaster, as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has become a kind of wildlife preserve for wisent and other rare megafauna such as the Przewalski's horse, though poaching has become a threat in recent years. The American Plains bison is no longer listed as endangered, but this does not mean the species is secure. Genetically pure *B. b. bison* currently number only about 20,000, separated into fragmented herds—all of which require active conservation measures. The wood bison is on the endangered species list in Canada and is listed as threatened in the United States, though numerous attempts have been made by beefalo ranchers to have it entirely removed from the Endangered Species Act|Endangered Species List.

1. ↑ Glossary. American Museum of Natural History.
2. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
3. ↑ BIson americanus pennsylvanicus.
4. ↑ Gennady G. Boeskorov, Olga R. Potapova, Albert V. Protopopov, Valery V. Plotnikov, Larry D. Agenbroad, Konstantin S. Kirikov, Innokenty S. Pavlov, Marina V. Shchelchkova, Innocenty N. Belolyubskii, Mikhail D. Tomshin, Rafal Kowalczyk, Sergey P. Davydov, Stanislav D. Kolesov, Alexey N. Tikhonov, Johannes van der Plicht, 2016, The Yukagir Bison: The exterior morphology of a complete frozen mummy of the extinct steppe bison, *Bison priscus* from the early Holocene of northern Yakutia, Russia, pp.7, Quaternary International, Vol.406 (25 June 2016), Part B, pp.94-110
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 [1] "American Bison", The National Wildlife Federation.
6. ↑ Semenov U.A. of World Wide Fund for Nature|WWF-Russia, 2014, "The Wisents of Karachay-Cherkessia", Proceedings of the Sochi National Park (8), pp.23-24, Template:ISBN, KMK Scientific Press
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Hendricks, K. "*Bison bonasus*, European bison", Animal Diversity Web, 2013.
8. ↑ Template:Cite book
9. ↑ Template:Cite book
10. ↑ Chernobyl's Przewalski's horses are poached for meat.
11. ↑ Template:Cite iucn
12. ↑ U.S. *Fish and Wildlife Service Species Report*.
13. ↑ Wood Bison.