American bison

Lore & Background

The American bison has two described subspecies or ecotypes: the plains bison (B. b. bison), smaller and with a more rounded hump, and the wood bison (B. b. athabascae), larger and with a taller, square hump. The wood bison is one of the largest wild species of extant bovid in the world, surpassed only by the Asian gaur. Bison are herbivores, grazing on grasses and sedges of the North American prairies, with a daily schedule involving two-hour periods of grazing, resting, and cud chewing. Spanning back millennia, Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains have had cultural and spiritual connections to the American bison.

Reader's Guide

The American bison holds profound significance in North American history and ecology. Its historical range, the great bison belt, covered vast grasslands from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico and east to the Atlantic Seaboard. The species was a major resource for the traditional way of life of Native Americans, providing food, hides for clothing and shelter, and horns and bones for tools. The near-extinction of the bison in the 19th century, driven by commercial hunting and slaughter, as well as the introduction of bovine diseases, is linked to the genocide of Native Americans. Today, bison freely roam in several regions in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and have been introduced in Russia. The species is the national mammal of the United States, and its cultural and spiritual connections to Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains endure.

Did You Know?

• The American bison is one of two extant species of bison, along with the European bison.
• The American bison has been introduced in Russia, with a population established in Ingilor Nature Park in Yakutia.

The Great Bison Belt: A Continent-Spanning Range

The American bison, one of only two living bison species alongside its European relative, is entirely native to North America. Around 9000 BC, the species occupied what is called the great bison belt — an enormous stretch of fertile grassland that stretched from Alaska in the west all the way to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. In the east, the range pressed nearly to the Atlantic tidewater in certain areas, reaching as far north as New York and as far south as Georgia. A handful of sources even push the southern boundary into northern Florida. The species' presence in the southeastern interior persisted remarkably late; as late as 1750, bison were still sighted near Buffalo Ford along the Catawba River in North Carolina. This extraordinary geographic breadth underscores just how thoroughly the animal was woven into the ecology of the continent long before European contact reshaped the landscape.

Two Ecotypes, One Iconic Silhouette

Two ecotypes of the American bison are recognized: the plains bison (Bison bison bison), the smaller form with a more rounded shoulder hump, and the wood bison (Bison bison athabascae), the larger variant distinguished by a taller, squarer hump. A proposal to further split the plains form into northern (B. b. montanae) and southern (B. b. bison) subspecies has received limited scientific backing. The wood bison ranks among the largest wild bovids still alive on Earth, second only to the Asian gaur. Males can reach head-rump lengths of up to 3.5 meters and stand 186 to 201 centimeters at the withers, depending on ecotype. Weights span a wide range, from roughly 318 kilograms for younger or smaller individuals up to a recorded wild maximum of 1,270 kilograms. Both sexes bear short, curved horns that can span 90 to 124 centimeters tip to tip, used in dominance contests and defense. The animal wears a thick, dark-brown shaggy coat in winter that thins to a lighter shade in summer, and it feeds exclusively on the grasses and sedges of the North American prairies.

From Sixty Million to 541: The Long Road Back

In the late 1700s, an estimated sixty million American bison roamed the continent in vast herds. By 1889, that number had collapsed to a mere 541 animals. The devastation was driven by commercial hunting and slaughter throughout the nineteenth century, compounded by bovine diseases introduced through contact with domestic cattle. The slaughter was also a deliberate instrument in the broader genocide of Native Americans, because the bison was the cornerstone of Plains Indigenous life — providing food, hides for clothing and shelter, and horns and bones for tools. Recovery efforts gained momentum in the mid-twentieth century, and by March 2019 the wild population had rebounded to roughly 31,000 individuals. For decades those animals were concentrated in a handful of national parks and reserves, but multiple reintroduction programs have since allowed the species to roam freely across parts of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Smaller conservation herds and private commercial operations also maintain populations, and the bison has even been introduced to Russia, where a group now lives in Ingilor Nature Park in Yakutia.

Names, Languages, and a Thousand-Year Bond

The bison's name in English carries a layered history. The word buffalo was applied to the animal as early as 1616, when Samuel de Champlain used the French term buffles after Nipissing First Nation members showed him skins and a drawing of the creature; those Indigenous people said they had traveled forty days from east of Lake Huron to trade with another nation that hunted the animals. The term bison entered English usage in the 1690s, borrowed from French and ultimately tracing back to Latin and Proto-Germanic roots. In British English, buffalo is reserved for African and water buffalo, while American English treats both words as acceptable. Perhaps most revealing is the linguistic treatment in Plains Indian languages: in Arapaho, the bison cow is bii and the bull is henéécee; in Lakota, pté and tȟatȟáŋka respectively. This sex-based distinction is unusual — Arapaho uses gender-neutral terms for elk and mule deer — and likely reflects the animal's extraordinary spiritual and cultural weight in Indigenous life, a bond spanning millennia. Today the bison stands as the national mammal of the United States.

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