Bison vs. Buffalo: What's the Difference?

Science News • Videos • Explainers

[ToddWCorey]

The main difference is that bison would never lose 4 straight Superbowls.

[andymartinez]

So the logo for Buffalo Wild Wings is inaccurate?

[buxeessingh]

Native Buffalonian here.

I think this would be a great video to play at Buffalo Bisons games. It probably belongs on the city's website too.

[miningflame]

Believe it or not, I didn't search this up for a school project, I was just curious

[pirateswiggity]

I grew up in KS and one of the things I was always taught was that the American buffalo was hunted *completely* to extinction and that all we had left was the bison. A nearly identical relative to the American buffalo.

We also regularly got hit with a particularly weird PSA on one of the cartoon networks I watched as a kid. I can’t exactly recall if it stated it directly, but through the visuals it basically implied that if we didn’t cut back on our water usage, we’d inevitably drain the oceans dry and leave whales beached and dehydrated on the sea floor…

in KANSAS!!! Where most of our water comes from ground water aquifers… NOT THE FUCKING OCEAN! Never mind the fact that most places, even on the coast (which KS clearly isn’t) don’t tend to use ocean water if they can help it as removing the salinity from it is often more expensive than pumping ground water, or literally any other source of water.

Looking back, there was just some of the weirdest propaganda in my childhood.

[hanzohattori]

"large cattle like species".
Funny thing is that cattle is itself a separate species than bison and buffalo but like bison and buffalo cattle males are called bulls and females are called cows.

[imaspecofdust]

One thing they both have in common
They're both scary as heck when you tick them off

[squelch]

Wait so in America there’s only bison and not buffalo?

[DavidLS]

What did the buffalo say to his boy when he went off to school?






Bison.

[ravenestrella]

I'm 42 years old, and just found out that what I thought were buffalo for the past four decades are actually bison.

[Klondike]

I have read that Samuel De Champlain visited the Nippissing, north of the Huron Lake, and they would have show some bison pelt, which is really possible for the time period, when you know bisons were not only in the far west, and with trade, which they were also known for trading with the western tribes, they would have acquires such pelt, possibly, and Champlain seeing it, would have called it a ''Buffle'' (buffalo, but in french) and because it looked like that to him! I dont know for sure if it originated from the father of new france, but I would imagine that words spreads out after that. And knowing how french settlers and fur traders went far west before the anglos actually went, it would not surprise me at all, that french were for something into this!

[Kaefer]

I don't think the "european settler used a name they knew" story seems plausible, wouldn't they have called the Bison Wisent after the European Bison if that was the case?
Well the Wisent may have been extinct on Britain already, but was a far distant bovine really more well known as the most notable wild continental bovine?

[dedrakuhn]

When the bison fought the bull in Warez Mexico is a wonderful video to google

[capybara]

I never knew there was a difference. Thanks!

[biggboii]

So, a bison is a buffalo but a buffalo isn't a

[tims]

Best way to tell them apart is the ask 'which one skipped leg day?'

[nyquilsleepah]

School House Rock calls them Buffalo, so i shall do the same (plus i always knew them as Buffalo) Tomato Tomato 😗

[ricardobjj]

Ive always thought the Buffalo Bills were Bison anyway

[johnhendricks]

So if I'm in America and the menu says buffalo burger I'm more than likely eating a bison burger.

[lekcindr]

colorado university are the buffaloes but the animal they use at football games to represent the university looks to be, based on the description in this video, a bison. are they confusing the two and using either the wrong name or wrong live animal (which we shouldn't be doing in the first place)? Seems like they should be the CU Bison.