Last night we were watching jeopardy and one of the contestants missed a question that pictured an animal — the contestant identified it as a buffalo, but the correct answer was a bison. The category, I think, was American History. I can understand the mistake — bison are often called buffalos, and buffalos are often referred to as bison.
I grew up in Oklahoma — often referred to as the old west or maybe the wild west…. it wasn’t, of course, but when I came to the east coast, a lot of people thought I was from “way out west.”
But anyhow, when I was growing up these animals were always called buffalos — I don’t remember hearing the word bison when I was young.
So even though I lived in the “American West” and there was a popular song, “Home on the Range,” that had a line in it “… where the buffalo roam,” that song got a fairly important detail wrong — buffalo never roamed in the area, but bison did — and still do.
Buffalo and bison are two distinct animals. Buffalo are native to Africa and Asia. Bison are found in North America and Europe.
I knew the answer to the Jeopardy question and I can actually tell the difference between a buffalo and a bison, but I thought maybe I’d do a little extensive research on the subject and I discovered a number of interesting things about both species….
As I mentioned, contrary to the “Home on the Range” song, buffalo do not roam in America. True buffalo are only found in Africa and Asia — bison are only found in North America and Europe.
So, admittedly, the two animals do look similar — how do you tell them apart?
Their body shapes are different — that makes it easy to tell them apart from a distance. Bison have a large hump on their shoulders, along with an oversized head that makes them look “front heavy.” Buffalo don’t have a hump and have smaller heads and shoulders — more in proportion to the rest of their bodies.
Another way to tell the difference is the horns — bison horns are shorter and sharper than buffalo horns.
And bison have a longish, unkempt beard under their chin — they’re sometimes referred to as the “plains hippies.” Buffalo do not have a beard.
Bison have a dense, two-layered coat that allows them to survive the extreme temperatures of the Great Plains. They grow a thick, shaggy coat for the winter, and that coat is shed annually each spring. Buffalo have relatively smooth and sleek thin coats and they don’t shed. Living in Africa and souther Asia, they aren’t exposed to such extremes temperatures, so they don’t need to grow a thick bison-like coat.
So if you’re out on the ranch and a big animal roams by, it’s a bison — not a buffalo. And if you’re on Jeopardy and they show you a picture of a large, bovine animal and the category is American History, the answer is bison — bison, not buffalo.
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