Where do the buffaloes live? On which continent, in what country?

Even just from the sight of these animals terrified, runs through the body trembling. It's a huge bison. Ancient Indians considered these individuals to be sacred. Today their population is small. About this amazingly strong animal, about where the bison lives (in which zone of the planet), its features can be found in this article. They differ surprisingly in size and a large massive physique. They are similar in appearance to the bison. And in nature, even with the latter interbreed among themselves, in this regard, they are united into one species.

Description

Where does the bison live, on which continent do these amazingly large animals live?
Before we find out, consider what they are.

The bison has spectacular dimensions: height at the withers - up to 2 meters, body length - up to 3 meters. The weight of males is approximately 1.2 tons. These are the largest terrestrial animals. Female bison, like most animals, is much inferior to male relatives. Their body weight is about 700 kg. Covered with a thick coat, the bison is gray with a brownish hue. Their color can vary from light-red to dark brown and almost black tones. Calf calves are born with a yellow coat color, but over time it darkens. Light (almost white) color bison are rare.

The wool is longer and darker in buffalo on the chest, head and beard, and on the rest of the body it is shorter. This feature gives the appearance of the animal even greater volume and threat.

The head of the bison is quite massive, with a broad forehead. Thick and short horns, diverging in the sides near the base of the head, at the ends bend inwards. This animal has narrow and small ears, a massive and short neck, large dark eyes.

The most characteristic feature of the bison structure is an unusual hump that is located on its scruff.

Where does the buffalo live?

The continent, on which the bison lives, is North America. For a long time bison (or buffalo) lived in the territories of almost the whole of North America. But today this population exists only in the northern and western parts of the river. Missouri.

The populations of the forest buffalo were very few in number. These individuals live mainly in the most deaf and wetlands of the basins of the rivers Buffalo, Birch (near the lakes Athabasca and Bolshoy Slobovye) and Pis.

Today bison is grown for commercial purposes. Their number is about 500 thousand heads (mostly steppe bison). About 4000 private ranches of North America are used for their breeding. In the wild, there are about 30 thousand individuals, and they are listed as endangered species in the Red Book.

Species, subspecies

In nature today there are two subspecies: forest (forest bull) and steppe. They differ in the cover of fur and features of the structure of the trunk. Where do the bison of these species live? And how are they different?

Bison of the steppe is a large ungulate animal weighing up to 700 kg. It is slightly smaller in weight and size than forest. A fairly large head has a large mop of thick wool between large horns and a similar dense beard. His hump rises above the bases of the front legs. One of the distinctive features of the steppe bison is a pronounced throat, which is stretched beyond the chest. The dense fur cover has a light brown color.

The forest bison, as noted above, exceeds the steppe in size. But his head is slightly smaller and framed by a darkish bangs, his horns are long and thin. He also has a rudimentary throat and a hump. The auburn hue of the forest bison is not very dense. The weight of a male often exceeds 900 kg. The fur of this species is darker and warmer.

Habitat

The forest bison was first known at the end of the 19th century. Scientists believe that their ancestors were primitive bison.

Where do the buffaloes live? And where did they live? The beginning of this genus was laid once by the wild bulls (genus Leptobos), who lived in the Pliocene (approximately 35,000 years ago) in India. Today there is a hypothesis that they spread to the north in broad steppes and evolved into bison of the steppe.

From the expanses of the Siberian bison along the earth passage that existed in those times, he got to North America. This version appeared in connection with the discovery in 1979 in Alaska (Yukon Island) of a fossil specimen of this bull.

And where do bison live (in which country)? In addition to Canada and the United States, the reintroduction of American forest buffaloes is being made back to Alaska. The very first batch of 53 animals was brought to these places in 2008.
But, despite the efforts made to preserve the population, the future of bison remains questionable. Dangers to their lives: various diseases that massacre cattle, and their mixing with steppe bison, which is undesirable.

Behavior of animals

Where do bison live at different seasons? They lead a nomadic way of life. In summer they live in the vast northern plains, and in winter they migrate to the southern plots. In those times when there were a lot of them, they walked huge imposing herds (thousands of individuals), occupying vast territories. And they chose the route themselves, and it was connected with the watering places.

During the periods of such migrations, there were cases that these herds blocked the movement of trains, the steamships stopped.

And how do they behave with their relatives where the buffalo live as herds? In fact, these animals are herd. Their family organization is in many respects similar to the habits of bison. The females and males are kept separately from the reproductive period. After the birth of calves, females with their young form groups, which include up to 30 individuals. Males usually graze individually, but also in bachelor herds (up to 15 individuals). Compared with the old times, bison produce clumps in pastures, consisting of only a few hundred individuals.

At night, bison sleeps, but their sleep is short. They graze around the clock. In general, this is a calm and balanced animal, but in rare cases (with anxiety) they are able to show aggression. Despite the huge body weight, bison can develop a high speed (about 50 km / h), and during the running they make sounds (snoring or grunting).

Conclusion

Where the bison lives, we found out. But it should be remembered that a long time ago in the vast expanses of the middle section of the northern American continent, their total number was about 60 million individuals.

Of course, it is impossible to return that amount, but under certain common efforts of people, it is possible at least to stop the reduction of the number of such an exotic animal and even to increase it a little.