May 21, 2010; Lamar Valley, Yellowstone National Park.
From Wikipedia:The
American bison (
Bison bison), also commonly known as the
American buffalo, is a North American
species of
bison that once roamed the
grasslands of North America in massive
herds, became nearly extinct by
commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century, and has 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 Le?n, and east along the western boundary of the
Appalachian Mountains.
[2]Two subspecies or ecotypes have been described: the
plains bison (
Bison bison bison), smaller in size and with a more rounded hump, and the
wood bison (
Bison bison athabascae) ? the larger of the two and having a taller, square hump.
[3][4][5][6][7][8] Furthermore, it has been suggested that the plains bison consists of a northern (
Bison bison montanae) and a southern subspecies, bringing the total to three.
[6] 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 Asian water buffalo. It is the largest extant land animal in North America.