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Imagine that you are standing on the prairie, chasing after a groundhog, or something — when all of the sudden, you hear thunder. Looking at the sky, you can see no clouds; you don’t feel moisture in the air. Where’s that noise coming from? Then you see it… a cloud arising from the earth. A herd of bison is charging forward like a storm — running at 35 miles per hour. What can you do but get out of the way?!

Consider that bison weigh in at 2,000 pounds a piece and travel in large herds. Now factor in the fact that they used to travel across the continent in vast numbers. What do you think they left in their wake? Great roads, called “trace” trails, remained as a souvenir of the bison’s journey. Settlers drove their wagons along these trails as they migrated west. Eventually the trace trails evolved into roads, and now they serve as our modern highways! Just think, you might “roam where the buffalo roam” every day, and not even know it.

American bison probably traveled across the Bering land bridge during the Pleistocene Era. And though, they are unrelated to Asian water buffalo, and the fierce African cape buffalo, they have been called “buffalo” since a English naturalist thought that the American bison looked like the European buffalo — so they called the great creatures “buffello.”

Bison used to roam North America from the Hudson Bay down to Georgia, and across the Great Plains to the Rockies. Once the greatest mass of large mammals ever to tread the earth, their numbers ranged in the 30-millions. Their existence was crucial to the survival of the Native American tribes. European settlers understood the interrelationship between the native people and the bison, and systematically destroyed hundreds of thousands of bison. They knew it would exterminate the native tribes. As a consequence, bison have become endangered animals, whereas they once ruled North America. There is, however, a part of Yellowstone Park where the bison roam free.

In case you’ve never seen an American bison, they have a great big head, with long, wooly hair that is dark brown in color. They shed their shaggy winter coats in the spring, and enjoy rubbing their necks, heads and sides on tree trunks and branches. They sport a pair of horns which consist of a substance that is similar to hair. These horns grow quite slowly, and have rings that illustrate how old the bison is. The beast stands close to six feet when measured by the shoulder, and can be almost twice as long. A formidable creature, indeed.

Think of the great herds of buffaloes that used to roam across North America the next time you hear thunder!