Monday, February 06, 2006
American Bison
Massive head and forequarters covered with long, dark brown woolly hair. Short broad forehead, short neck, and high humped shoulders, with tufted tail. Long hairs of chin form long beard. Hips and hindquarters are much smaller and without long hair thus forming a distinct slope from hump to tail. Some stand six feet at the shoulder and weigh as much as a ton. Have short, sharp, upcurved horns. Shaggy winter coat falls off in patches in spring; color is dark brown in winter, lighter in summer.
Now found only in parks and reserves.
Bison came to North America during the Pleistocene Epoch via the Bering land bridge. Eventually they ranged from Canada’s Great Slave Lake to Mexico and from eastern Oregon almost to the Atlantic. They especially thrived on the Great Plains where some 30 million formed the biggest mass of large mammals ever to tread the globe. Early French settlers who saw herds living near the East Coast called them bison because they looked like a European cousin. A later English naturalist described them as buffalo which name stuck, even though the term is more correctly applied to other types of wild oxen found in Asia and Africa. Bison are susceptible to tuberculosis, anthrax, and brucellosis. Since these diseases theoretically can be transmitted to domestic livestock, ranchers (near Yellowstone Park for instance) become upset when buffalo wander onto private land.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Nowak, Ronald. 1991. Walker’s Mammals of the World, Vol II, 5th Ed, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
Turbak, Gary. 1986. “When the Buffalo Roam”, National Wildlife, June-July, pp. 30-35.
Now found only in parks and reserves.
Bison came to North America during the Pleistocene Epoch via the Bering land bridge. Eventually they ranged from Canada’s Great Slave Lake to Mexico and from eastern Oregon almost to the Atlantic. They especially thrived on the Great Plains where some 30 million formed the biggest mass of large mammals ever to tread the globe. Early French settlers who saw herds living near the East Coast called them bison because they looked like a European cousin. A later English naturalist described them as buffalo which name stuck, even though the term is more correctly applied to other types of wild oxen found in Asia and Africa. Bison are susceptible to tuberculosis, anthrax, and brucellosis. Since these diseases theoretically can be transmitted to domestic livestock, ranchers (near Yellowstone Park for instance) become upset when buffalo wander onto private land.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Nowak, Ronald. 1991. Walker’s Mammals of the World, Vol II, 5th Ed, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
Turbak, Gary. 1986. “When the Buffalo Roam”, National Wildlife, June-July, pp. 30-35.
# posted by saffron @ 10:29 AM 
