What is the difference between Buffalo and Bison?
Technically we raise North American Bison not Buffalo. Buffalo is a common nickname often used to describe North American bison; however, this is a misnomer. In fact, buffalo are distinctly different animals from bison. Although both bison and buffalo belong to the same family, Bovidae, true ‘buffalo’ are indigenous only to Africa and Asia. There have been a number of explanations offered over the years as to the origin of buffalo as the name for the North American bison, but one explanation is that European explorers upon seeing these unknown beasts called them bisonte, buffes, buffelo, buffles, and buffalo since they looked similar to the more familiar African Cape Buffalo and Asian Water Buffalo. Despite the misnomer, the term buffalo has been used interchangeably with bison ever since.
