The steppe bisonSeveral literatures address the species as ''primeval bison''. or steppe wisent (''Bison'' ''priscus'')
– Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre. Beringia.com. Retrieved on 2013-05-31. is an extinct species of

bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North ...

that was once found on the

mammoth steppe During the Last Glacial Maximum, the mammoth steppe, also known as steppe-tundra, was the Earth's most extensive biome. It spanned from Spain eastward across Eurasia to Canada and from the arctic islands southward to China. The mammoth steppe ...

where its range included

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles (O ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

,Вестник Кирилло-Белозерского музея 9 (Май 2006) О. Яшина, Т.В. Цветкова – Кирилловский бизон
Kirmuseum.ru. Retrieved on 2013-05-31.

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former ...

, Northern to

Northeastern Asia Northeast Asia or Northeastern Asia is a geographical subregion of Asia; its northeastern landmass and islands are bounded by the Pacific Ocean. The term Northeast Asia was popularized during the 1930s by American historian and political scie ...

including

Japanese archipelago The Japanese archipelago ( Japanese: , ''Nihon Rettō'') is an archipelago of 14,125 islands that form the country of Japan. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East China and Philippine seas in the southwest al ...

Beringia Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip ...

, and central North America, from northwest

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Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

during the Quaternary. This wide distribution is sometimes called the Pleistocene bison belt, compared to the Great bison belt. The radiocarbon dating of a steppe bison skeleton indicates that it was present 5,400 years ago in Alaska. Three chronological subspecies, ''Bison priscus priscus'', ''Bison priscus mediator'', and ''Bison priscus gigas'', have been suggested.

Evolution

The steppe bison first appeared during the mid

Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale or a Stage (stratigraphy), stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch withi ...

in eastern Eurasia, subsequently dispersing westwards as far as Western Europe. During the late Middle Pleistocene, around 195,000-135,000 years ago, the steppe bison migrated across the

Bering land bridge Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip o ...

into North America, becoming ancestral to modern

American bison The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the ...

, as well as extinct forms such as the largest known bison, the long-horned '' Bison latifrons,'' and the smaller '' Bison antiquus.'' The steppe bison distribution contracted after the end of the Pleistocene, surviving into the early-mid

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

in Alaska-Yukon and eastern Siberia, before becoming extinct.

Description

Resembling the modern bison species, especially the American wood bison (''Bison bison athabascae''), the steppe bison was over tall at the

withers The withers is the ridge between the shoulder blades of an animal, typically a quadruped. In many species, it is the tallest point of the body. In horses and dogs, it is the standard place to measure the animal's height. In contrast, cattle ...

, reaching in weight. The tips of the horns were a meter apart, the horns themselves being over half a meter long. ''Bison priscus gigas'' is the largest known bison species of Eurasia; the species was possibly analogous to '' Bison latifrons'', attaining similar body sizes and horns which were up to apart, and presumably favored similar habitat conditions.

Discoveries

Steppe bison appear in

cave art In archaeology, Cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin, and the oldest known are more than 40,000 ye ...

, notably in the

Cave of Altamira The Cave of Altamira (; es, Cueva de Altamira ) is a cave complex, located near the historic town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain. It is renowned for prehistoric cave art featuring charcoal drawings and polychrome paintings of conte ...

and

Lascaux Lascaux ( , ; french: Grotte de Lascaux , "Lascaux Cave") is a network of caves near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne in southwestern France. Over 600 parietal wall paintings cover the interior walls and ceilings of ...

, and the carving '' Bison Licking Insect Bite'', and have been found in naturally ice-preserved form. Blue Babe is the 36,000-year-old mummy of a male steppe bison which was discovered north of

Fairbanks, Alaska Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the po ...

, in July 1979.Deem, James M
"Blue Babe - the 36,000 year-old male bison"
James M. Deem's Mummy Tombs. 1988-2012. Accessed 20 March 2012. The

mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...

was noticed by a gold miner who named the mummy Blue Babe – "Babe" for Paul Bunyan's mythical giant ox, permanently turned blue when he was buried to the horns in a blizzard (Blue Babe's own bluish cast was caused by a coating of vivianite, a blue

iron phosphate Iron phosphate may refer to: * Iron(II) phosphate * Iron(III) phosphate {{Short pages monitor