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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen did the American buffalo disappear and become bison?
I just realized that the American animal that I've always known as the buffalo isn't a buffalo any more. It's a bison.
Buffaloes live in Africa only, I read.
I know they were sometimes referred to as bison but buffalo was the more common term.
Is the American buffalo now an obsolete term?
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Basically the words mean the same thing - Bison being a greek word for "large ox-like thing" and Buffalo being a derivative of the French word for "large ox-like thing"
The buffaloes of Asia were called "buffalo" before their American cousins, and so they get to keep the term, while the American buffalo, to avoid confusion with critters it's only somewhat related to, was rechristened "bison."
Which is weird, when you think about it, since a more appropriate name would have been "American Wisent" but then you'd have to explain what a wisent is, and then people start staring blankly at you...
vaberella
(24,634 posts)I have never laughed so loud and I have to now look up "Wisent." "large ox-like thing"-- will forever live with me.
rug
(82,333 posts)Automatically reminded me of a book series by Stephen R. Lawhead, the Albion War.
Auroch - Large Ox-Like thing, some were on the British Isles.
rug
(82,333 posts)GoCubsGo
(32,095 posts)Genus and species are Bison bison. Just like the American alligator is Alligator mississippiensis.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Given how well-loved bison are in North America I'm surprised the wisent is not more well known.
RZM
(8,556 posts)They look fairly similar to ours. If I remember correctly one species is a bit larger (I think the American, but it's been a while).
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)[img][/img]
Much like the people it's associated with, the bison was pretty much considered vermin fit only for extermination, until they were very nearly completely destroyed. Suddenly when they're not around anymore, they become "iconic."
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)and to Bedrock
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Last edited Sat Jun 2, 2012, 02:45 PM - Edit history (1)
When the Indians pointed out they had never even been to India the bison were emboldened to point out that there were in no way buffalo either.
Seriously, though, I think the Bison was also called the American Buffalo, and then the American got left off. Buffalo was never correct, but American Buffalo isn't so bad. They are as close to Buffalo as we've got.
A fascinating fact: When the white man reached the plains there were buffalo... sorry, bison as far as the eye could see, and they were probably grazing everything into desert. It is said the herds went from horizon to horizon.
That was not the normal state of bison. A big meaty animal that crazy-numerous will lead to predators evolved to eat them.
Sometimes we see this where people kill all the predators that eat their farm animals and then deer or bison population goes wild.
In the case of the bison, Europeans had killed off the bison's biggest predator, but without meaning to or even realizing it.
Smallpox ran ahead of the European settlers, sweeping across the continent a couple of centuries before any European settlers got to the heartland. When the Europeans got there the bison were out of control because so many native Americans had died off that the bison were not being hunted as much as before.
(I do not know whether native Americans kept down the population of wolves or cougars or whatever might threaten bison because of the competition for bison. Either way, it is safe to assume that circa 1500 the native American was the bison's greatest natural enemy.)
The Europeans met the nomadic plains Indians and marveled at their horsemanship, not realizing that horses were not native to America and were as new to the native Americans as the smallpox had been. Like disease, the horses had wandered far ahead of the white settlers and a culture developed around them.
Most evidence of some native American civilizations laid low by European disease had been reclaimed by nature before Europeans ever saw them. (Lots of Indian earthworks were assumed to be natural formations until the last century because it didn't really register until you saw them from the air.)
Egalitariat
(1,631 posts)Thanks for posting.
Monk06
(7,675 posts)David Thompson's Journals (b1770 - d1857) published by the Champlain Society in 1912
http://link.library.utoronto.ca/champlain/item_record.cfm?Idno=9_96855&lang=eng&query=thompson%20AND%20david&searchtype=Author&startrow=1&Limit=All
Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Settlers assumed they were related to the water buffalos in Africa, but aren't...They're related to cattle.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)slackmaster
(60,567 posts)But it's all good.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)For elk or wild boar - & I do both.
I can get buffalo at the store - because I'm a lazy, impatient Git I do that more.
dionysus
(26,467 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)Custer buffalo round up
http://www.allblackhills.com/events/custer_state_park_buffalo_roundup.php
they are still buffalo here too,guy down the road has 50 or so and they sell buffalo burgers at the local watering hole.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)All of the items sold as "potatoes" now are artificial.
NickB79
(19,274 posts)There are hundreds of native races of potato still grown in South America, and many are available for gardeners to grow in the US and around the world. Many of these are highly resistant to the potato blight disease that caused the Irish potato famine. The one or two varieties that were hammered in Ireland by the Irish potato famine's fungal outbreak were just a small sampling of what the New World had to offer.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)And what's more, every single potato plant in Ireland was a clone. Every last one. Since the plant was propagated by cuttings, rather than by seed, every last individual plant was genetically identical to every other one. This was true in most of Britain and mainland Europe as well; potato blight actually struck in the Netherlands before reaching Ireland. The culprit, apparently, is the result of hybridization between a water-mold species that lives in guano, and another water-mold species from central Mexico.
Potato blight is actually a very stunning example of the colombian exchange
As for those varieties in the Andes... a lot of them are toxic. They're still cultivated, they just need special preparation or even condiments to actually make them edible (for instance; one mouthful of potato, followed by another mouthful of roasted clay dust, which bonds the alkali toxins. Yum yum)
And there you go. More information about potatoes than you probably ever wanted to know. But why not? These things are pretty much one of the cornerstones of the human diet nowadays (other potato fact; you can live perfectly healthily on a diet of nothing but potatoes and milk. All the nutrients are there)
NickB79
(19,274 posts)Wonderful to know, especially the part about eating potatoes and clay
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)There are many "varieties" of the potato species, about five thousand potato varieties worldwide. Not many species of potato. And, the common potato can be toxic if you allow the sun to turn the tubers green. Don't eat any potato that is chlorophyllous.
1500 Peruvian Potato Varieties Latest Addition to Seed Vault
http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/organic/1500-peruvian-potato-varieties-latest-addition-to-seed-vault/
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)With lots of varieties. The variety in most of Europe during the blight was the lumper;
[img][/img]
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)Those items you have been led to believe are real potatoes are all made in a secret factory in Belize by a consortium of big Agribusiness companies. There hasn't been a living real potato plant anywhere on Earth since 1861.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)The American bison, that used to be called the buffalo; the water buffalo that is a domesticated animal in Asia (and some varieties are still in the wild), the wild African buffalo or Cape buffalo that is unrelated to any of the others; and the wizent or European bison that looks somewhat like an American bison or buffalo, with which it can interbreed, and that was nearly hunted to extinction as well but which has made a resurgence? I'm getting confused with all the buffaloes or bison without pictures of what people are talking about.
Here's a pic of the American buffalo's (or bison) European cousin.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,368 posts)Wikipedia says the African Cape buffalo (Syncerus) is not particularly related to the others, but it also has a reference to a 2009 paper on the genetics, which says that they are closer to the Asian water buffalo (Bubalus) than to the others (or to domestic cattle):
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/10/177/abstract
But, just to throw a spanner in the works, the Gaur is also called the Indian Bison.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)applegrove
(118,807 posts)in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the 1880s. He saw thousands of pelts coming in a day so he saved 13 orphaned buffalo and raised them. They were the last of the breed I think. They were called "Buffalo" in the article. We called them buffalo in public school in the 1970s.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)whistler162
(11,155 posts)never heard of Bison NY!
daaron
(763 posts)According to WikiPedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison):
Bison were hunted almost to extinction in the late 19th century primarily by market hunters and were reduced to a few hundred by the mid-1880s. They were hunted for their skins, with the rest of the animal left behind to decay on the ground.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)or that they tasted good spicy hot with a blue cheese dip.
blockhead
(1,081 posts)FSogol
(45,529 posts)slackmaster
(60,567 posts)Joseph28
(14 posts)[IMG][/IMG]Good point
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)Right after the have a Tea Party