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 that was once found on 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, ...

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 entirel ...

,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 subregion, 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 t ...

, Northern to Northeastern Asia including

Japanese archipelago The Japanese archipelago (Japanese: 日本列島, ''Nihon rettō'') is a group of 6,852 islands that form the country of Japan, as well as the Russian island of Sakhalin. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East Chin ...

, Beringia, 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 Guatema ...

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 in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. Th ...

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 of ...

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 Bubalina, buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongs ...

, as well as extinct forms such as the largest known bison, the long-horned ''

Bison latifrons ''Bison latifrons'', also known as the giant bison or long-horned bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch ranging from Alaska to Mexico. It was the largest and heaviest bovid ever to live in ...

,'' and the smaller ''

Bison antiquus ''Bison antiquus'', the antique bison or ancient bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in Late Pleistocene North America until around 10,000 years ago. It was one of the most common large herbivores on the North American continent dur ...

.'' 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, 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 ''

'', attaining similar body sizes and horns which were up to apart, and presumably favored similar habitat conditions.

Discoveries

Steppe bison appear in cave art, 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 contem ...

and Lascaux, and the carving ''

Bison Licking Insect Bite 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 Amer ...

'', 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, 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 Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface ...

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 Vivianite () is a hydrated iron phosphate mineral found in a number of geological environments. Small amounts of manganese Mn2+, magnesium Mg and calcium Ca may substitute for iron Fe2+ in the structure.Gaines et al (1997) Dana’s New Minera ...

, a blue

iron phosphate Iron phosphate may refer to: * Iron(II) phosphate * Iron(III) phosphate Iron(III) phosphate, also ferric phosphate, is the inorganic compound with the formula Fe PO4. Several related materials are known, including four polymorphs of FePO4 and ...

covering much of the specimen). Blue Babe is also frequently referenced when talking about scientists eating their own specimens: the research team that was preparing it for permanent display in the University of Alaska Museum removed a portion of the mummy's neck, stewed it, and dined on it to celebrate the accomplishment. In 2011, a 9,300-year-old mummy was found at Yukagir in Siberia. In 2016, a frozen tail was discovered in the north of the Republic of Sakha in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

. The exact age was not clear, but tests showed it was not younger than 8,000 years old. A team of Russian and South Korean scientists proposed extracting DNA from the specimen and

cloning Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical or virtually identical DNA, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction. In the field of biotechnology, c ...

it in the future.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q830854 Bison Prehistoric bovids Holocene extinctions Prehistoric even-toed ungulates Prehistoric mammals of North America Quaternary mammals of Asia Pleistocene mammals of Europe Pleistocene mammals of Asia Pleistocene mammals of North America Mammals described in 1827 Fossil taxa described in 1827 Pleistocene first appearances Taxa named by Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus