Bison vs Buffalo: Differences and Why the Names Get Mixed Up

Key differences at a glance

Strictly speaking, “buffalo” refers to two species: the African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), which includes the Cape buffalo, and the water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) of Asia, which is mostly domesticated and descends from the endangered wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee). “Bison” refers to the American bison (Bison bison) and the European bison (Bison bonasus), or wisent.

All four are large members of the cattle family, Bovidae, and graze mainly on grass. But they belong to different branches of the family, look different and live in very different climates. The table above compares the American bison with the African buffalo, the “buffalo” most often confused with it.

The European bison is the American bison’s closest living relative. It looks similar, with a hump and a beard, but it is a little taller and longer-legged, with a less shaggy coat and horns that point more forward. Everything said here about bison applies broadly to both species.

The hump and the hair

A bison’s shape is unmistakable. A tall hump of muscle, anchored to long spines on the backbone, rises above the shoulders and supports the huge head, which bison swing to clear snow off grass. The front half of the body carries long, thick hair, with a mane, a beard under the chin and shaggy “chaps” on the forelegs. Bison are animals of cold winters, and their dense coat keeps them warm in temperatures well below freezing.

True buffalo live in warm climates and look very different. African and water buffalo have a fairly straight back with no hump, short, sparse hair, and no beard. Water buffalo have almost hairless gray or black skin and love to wallow in water and mud to keep cool.

The horns

Horns are the second easy clue. Both male and female bison have short, black horns that curve outward and upward from the sides of the head. Even in big bulls they reach only about 60 cm (2 ft) long.

Buffalo horns are much bigger. In the Cape buffalo, the bases of the male’s horns grow across the top of the head and fuse into a heavy shield called a boss; the horns then sweep down and out before curving up to sharp tips. Water buffalo have long, wide horns that curve back in a crescent, and wild water buffalo carry some of the largest horns of any living bovid.

Which is bigger?

Size overlaps more than most people expect. A large bison bull weighs about 450–900 kg (1,000–2,000 lb), and a Cape buffalo bull about 650–900 kg (1,430–1,980 lb), so the heaviest of each are similar. The bison, though, is taller at the shoulder because of its hump, at about 1.65–1.9 m (5.4–6.2 ft) against roughly 1.4–1.6 m (4.6–5.2 ft) for the Cape buffalo.

Some forms are much smaller. The African forest buffalo of Central and West Africa weighs only about 265–320 kg (580–705 lb). At the other end, large wood bison bulls in northern Canada can top 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). For bison sizes in detail, see how big is a bison?

Where they live

Bison are native to the Northern Hemisphere. The American bison lives in grasslands, mountain valleys and northern forests from northern Mexico to Alaska, in mostly managed herds. The European bison lives in forests and meadows in Poland, Belarus and other parts of Europe, where it has been reintroduced.

The African buffalo lives south of the Sahara, from savannas and floodplains to rainforest, in herds that can number hundreds or even more than a thousand. The water buffalo is a domestic animal kept by the tens of millions in South and Southeast Asia, and also in Italy, the Balkans, Egypt and South America; its milk is used for mozzarella in Italy. A large feral population also lives in northern Australia.

Behavior and temperament

Bison and African buffalo live in herds and defend themselves rather than flee from predators. Bison face wolves and grizzly bears, while African buffalo regularly confront lions, sometimes mobbing them as a group to rescue a herd member.

Both can be dangerous to people who get too close. In Yellowstone, bison have injured more visitors than any other animal; read are bison dangerous? The Cape buffalo is considered one of Africa’s most dangerous large animals, especially when wounded or cornered. Domestic water buffalo, in contrast, are usually docile working animals, although their wild relatives are formidable.

Why Americans call bison buffalo

The mix-up is centuries old. French explorers in North America in the early 1600s called the animal buffles, a word that came via Portuguese and Latin from a Greek name for a kind of wild ox or antelope, and English speakers adopted “buffalo” as early as the 1620s. The more precise “bison”, borrowed from a Latin word for a European wild ox, came into use for the American animal later in the 17th century.

“Buffalo” stuck in everyday speech and history: the buffalo nickel, Buffalo Soldiers, and William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who earned his nickname supplying bison meat to railroad workers in the late 1860s and claimed to have shot more than 4,000 bison in about 18 months. Many place names, such as Buffalo Creek or Buffalo Gap, also recall the animal. Today the US National Park Service says both names are acceptable for the American animal, with “bison” preferred in scientific use. In British English, “buffalo” usually means only the African or water buffalo.

Can bison and buffalo interbreed?

No. Bison and true buffalo are separated by millions of years of evolution and cannot produce offspring together. Genetically, bison are much closer to domestic cattle and yaks. That is why bison can cross with cattle to produce hybrids known as beefalo or cattalo, and why traces of cattle DNA are found in many bison herds today, while no bison-buffalo hybrid exists.