Bison

Energy: 179 Calories (per 100 g)

Protein: 25.45 g (per 100 g)

Scientific name: Bison

Iron: 3.19 mg (per 100 g)

Height: Bison latifrons: 2.5 m

Mass: Bison antiquus: 1,600 kg

Bison are large, even-toed ungulates in the genus Bison within the subfamily Bovinae.

Two extant and six extinct species are recognised. Of the six extinct species, five went extinct in the Quaternary extinction event. Bison palaeosinensis evolved in the Early Pleistocene in South Asia, and was the evolutionary ancestor of B. priscus (steppe bison), which was the ancestor of all other Bison species. From 2 MYA to 6,000 BC, steppe bison ranged across the mammoth steppe, inhabiting Europe and northern Asia with B. schoetensacki (woodland bison), and North America with B. antiquus, B. latifrons, and B. occidentalis. The last species to go extinct, B. occidentalis, was succeeded at 3,000 BC by B. bison.

Of the two surviving species, the American bison, B. bison, found only in North America, is the more numerous. Although commonly known as a buffalo in the United States and occasionally in 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 Woodland 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 confusingly refer to this subspecies, not B. b. athabascae, which was not found in the region. The European bison, B. bonasus, or wisent, is found in Europe and the Caucasus, reintroduced after being extinct in the wild.

While all bison species are classified in their own genus, they are sometimes bred with domestic cattle (genus Bos) and produce fertile offspring called beefalo or zubron.

Classifications

American bison

Scientific name: Bison bison
Mass: 620 kg (Adult)
Conservation status: Near Threatened (Population stable)
Gestation period: 283 days
Trophic level: Herbivorous 

The American bison (Bison bison), also commonly known as the American buffalo or simply buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds. They became nearly extinct by a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century and introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle, and have made a recent resurgence largely restricted to a few national parks and reserves. Their historical range roughly comprised a triangle between the Great Bear Lake in Canada's far northwest, south to the Mexican states of Durango and Nuevo León, and east to the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States (nearly to the Atlantic tidewater in some areas) from New York to Georgia and per some sources down to Florida. Bison were seen in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as 1750.

Two subspecies or ecotypes have been described: the plains bison (B. b. bison), smaller in size and with a more rounded hump, and the wood bison (B. b. athabascae)—the larger of the two and having a taller, square hump.Furthermore, the plains bison has been suggested to consist of a northern (B. b. montanae) and a southern subspecies, bringing the total to three.[8] However, this is generally not supported. The wood bison is one of the largest wild species of bovid in the world, surpassed by only the Asian gaur and wild water buffalo. It is the largest extant land animal in the Americas.

The American bison is the national mammal of the United States.

European bison

Scientific name: Bison bonasus
Mass: 610 kg (Adult)
Conservation status: Vulnerable (Population increasing)
Gestation period: 266 days
Length: 2.9 m (Adult)

The European bison (Bison bonasus), also known as wisent  or the European wood bison, is a Eurasian species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the American bison. Three subspecies existed in the recent past, but only one survives today. The species is, theoretically, descended from a hybrid, a cross between a female aurochs, the extinct wild ancestor of modern cattle, and a male Steppe bison; the possible hybrid is referred to informally as the Higgs bison.Alternatively, the Pleistocene woodland bison has been suggested as the ancestor to the species.
European bison were hunted to extinction in the wild in the early 20th century, with the last wild animals of the B. b. bonasus subspecies being shot in the Białowieża Forest (on the Belarus-Poland border) in 1921, and the last of B. b. caucasus in the northwestern Caucasus in 1927. B. b. hungarorum was hunted to extinction in the mid-1800s. The Białowieża or lowland European bison was kept alive in captivity, and has since been reintroduced into several countries in Europe. They are now forest-dwelling. The species has had few recent predators besides humans, with only scattered reports from the 19th century of wolf and bear predation. European bison were first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Some later descriptions treat the European bison as conspecific with the American bison. It is not to be confused with the aurochs, the extinct ancestor of domestic cattle.

In 1996, the International Union for Conservation of Nature classified the European bison as an endangered species. Its status has since been changed to being a vulnerable species. In the past, especially during the Middle Ages, it was commonly killed for its hide and to produce drinking horns.

Steppe bison
Scientific name: Bison priscus
Higher classification: Bison
Rank: Species

The steppe bison or steppe wisent (Bison priscus) is an extinct species of bison that was once found on the mammoth steppewhere its range included Europe,Central Asia,Northern Asia,Beringia, and North America,from northwest Canada to Mexico during the Quaternary.

Bison latifrons

Scientific name: Bison latifrons
Height: 2.5 m (Adult, At Shoulder)Higher classification: Bison
Rank: Species

Bison latifrons (also known as the giant Ice Age bison or long-horned bison) is an extinct species of bison that lived in North Americaduring the Pleistocene epoch. B. latifrons thrived in North America for approximately 200,000 years, but became extinct some 20,000–30,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum.

Bison antiques

Scientific name: Bison antiquus
Mass: 1,600 kg (Adult)
Length: 4.6 m (Adult)

Higher classification: Bison 

Rank: Species

Bison antiquus, the Ancient or Antique bison, was the most common large herbivore of the North American continent for over 10,000 years, and is a direct ancestor of the living American bison.

Bison occidentalis

Scientific name: Bison occidentalis

Higher classification: Bison
Rank: Species

Bison occidentalis is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America from about 11,000 to 5,000 years ago, spanning the end of the Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene.Likely evolving from Bison antiquus, B. occidentalis was smaller overall from its ancestor and other species such as the steppe bison. B. occidentalis had a highly variable morphology, and their horns, which pointed rearward, were much thinner and pointed than Pleistocene species of bison.Around 5,000 years ago, B. occidentalis was replaced by today's smaller Bison bison.

B. occidentalis may have declined in numbers because of competition with other grass eaters of the megafauna epoch. More recently ancient DNA studies have proven interbreeding between B. occidentalis and ancestral modern bisons, so B. occidentalis was proposed to have been a localized offshoot of B. antiquus and part of the transition from that chronospecies to modern bisons.