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American Bison

Bison bison · easy

In the early nineteenth century bison numbered in the tens of millions and moved across the North American plains in herds that took days to pass. By 1889 a survey found a few hundred left. The slaughter was industrial and partly deliberate policy, aimed at removing the resource Plains nations depended on, and it happened within a single lifetime.

What saved the species was a handful of private herds and a remnant population in Yellowstone that never entirely disappeared. Everything alive today descends from that narrow base, and many herds carry some cattle DNA from early crossbreeding attempts — genetically pure lineages are now managed carefully because of it.

Bison shape the grassland they live on. They graze differently from cattle, moving on rather than lingering, and they wallow: rolling in dust to shed insects and shedding hair, leaving depressions that hold water after rain and support their own plant and invertebrate communities.

They are also faster and more agile than their bulk suggests, capable of sprinting and of clearing considerable heights. Numbers today are in the hundreds of thousands, though most are commercial animals; genuinely wild, free-ranging conservation herds remain a small fraction of that total.

Where it lives

Worml lists the american bison as native to 2 countries — Canada and United States. Its habitat is prairie, grassland and open boreal forest.

Ranges here are reduced to whole countries for playability and exclude introduced populations — see about the data for what that simplification leaves out.

In the game

American Bison is rated easy. To solve the round you need to find all 2 of its listed countries. How scoring works →

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