The American bison Bison bison ; pl. It is one of two extant species of bison, along with the European bison. Its historical range circa BC is referred to as the great bison belt , a tract of rich grassland spanning from Alaska south to the Gulf of Mexico , and east to the Atlantic Seaboard nearly to the Atlantic tidewater in some areas , as far north as New York , south to Georgia , and according to some sources, further south to northern Florida , with sightings in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as Two subspecies or ecotypes have been described: the plains bison B.
The wood bison is one of the largest wild species of extant bovid in the world, surpassed only by the Asian gaur. Once roaming in vast herds , the species nearly became extinct by a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century and introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle.
With an estimated population of 60 million in the late 18th century, the species was culled down to just animals by as part of the subjugation of the Native Americans, because the American bison was a major resource for their traditional way of life food source, hides for clothing and shelter, and horns and bones for tools. Through multiple reintroductions , the species now freely roams wild in several regions in the United States , Canada and Mexico.
The American bison has also been introduced to Yakutia in Russia. Spanning back millennia , Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains have had cultural and spiritual connections to the American bison. It is the national mammal of the United States. In American English, both buffalo and bison are considered correct terms for the American bison. In English usage, the term buffalo was used to refer to the American mammal as early as Buffalo was applied to the American bison by Samuel de Champlain as the French word buffles in published , after seeing skins and a drawing.
These were shown to him by members of the Nipissing First Nation , who said they traveled forty days from east of Lake Huron to trade with another nation who hunted the animals. Bison was borrowed from French bison in the early 17th century, from Latin bison aurochs , from a Proto-Germanic word similar to wisent and, per Etymonline, first applied to American buffalo in the s. In Plains Indian languages in general, male and female bison are distinguished, with each having a different designation rather than there being a single generic word covering both sexes.
