Buffalo. The American bison, commonly known as the buffalo, is a species of bison that is endemic to North America.
It is a powerful symbol of the American West and has been depicted in various forms of art. Early Native American rock art and petroglyphs often feature the buffalo, highlighting its importance in culture and human survival.
Later, European American artists, such as George Catlin and Charles M. Russell, depicted the buffalo in realistic paintings, capturing its physical attributes and its role in the lives of Native American peoples. More contemporary artists have used the buffalo as a symbol of both the past and the present, exploring themes of environmentalism, cultural identity, and the impact of westward expansion.
It is one of two extant species of bison, along with the European bison. Its historical range circa 9000 BC is referred to as the great bison belt, a tract of rich grassland spanning from Alaska south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Seaboard, as far north as New York, south to Georgia, and according to some sources, further south to northern Florida, with sightings in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as 1750.
Two subspecies or ecotypes have been described: the plains bison, smaller and with a more rounded hump; and the wood bison, the larger of the two and having a taller, square hump. Furthermore, the plains biso