Steppe bison
| Steppe bison Temporal range: Middle Pleistocene to Holocene
| |
|---|---|
| "Blue Babe", a mummified specimen from Alaska | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Bovidae |
| Subfamily: | Bovinae |
| Genus: | Bison |
| Species: | †B. priscus
|
| Binomial name | |
| †Bison priscus (Bojanus, 1825)
| |
| Synonyms | |
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The steppe bison (Bison priscus, also less commonly known as the steppe wisent and the primeval bison) is an extinct species of bison which lived from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene. During the Late Pleistocene, it was widely distributed across the mammoth steppe, ranging from Western Europe to eastern Beringia in North America.
It is ancestral to all North American species of bison, including ultimately the modern American bison (Bison bison). Three chronological and regional subspecies, B. p. priscus, B. p. mediator, B. p. gigas, and B. p. alaskensis have been suggested.