Bison schoetensacki

Bison schoetensacki, commonly as the Pleistocene woodland bison or Pleistocene wood bison, was a species of bison that lived from the Early Pleistocene to at least the early Middle Pleistocene from western Europe to southern Siberia.^[1] Its presence in the Late Pleistocene is debated.^[2]

Bison schoetensacki Temporal range: Early Pleistocene–Middle Pleistocene PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Fossil of Bison schoetensacki at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Bovidae
Subfamily:	Bovinae
Genus:	Bison
Species:	†B. schoetensacki
Binomial name
†Bison schoetensacki Freudenberg, 1910

Description

B. schoetensacki was generally similar to extant European bison in shape although there could have been morphological variations among European bisons during late Early Pleistocene and Early Holocene.^[3]

In comparison to B. priscus, B. schoetensacki was either smaller or similar in size but with slenderer leg bones and metapodials, and had shorter and differently shaped horns.^[4]

Diet

Despite its common name, B. schoetensacki was probably not a mix-feeder, like the extant American wood bison. Instead, dental mesowear of the species shows similar pattern to that of extant European bison, a grazer.^[1]

Paleobiology

During the Late Early and Early Middle Pleistocene, B. schoetensacki was the most common large bovid in Europe.^[5] Fossils have been obtained from Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Moldova, Russia, Spain,^[2][6] and mass excavations from the Paleolithic site of Isernia in Italy, dating back to around 700,000 years ago, indicate B. schoetensacki was the most heavily targeted animal by human hunters,^[7] as European bison likely didn't inhabit the Italian and Iberian Peninsulas.^[1]

Ranges of B. schoetensacki and steppe bison presumably overlapped for some extents.^[1]

Genetics

A 2017 study which attributed Late Pleistocene European remains to B. schoetensacki found it to belong to a mitochondrial clade which is the sister group to modern wisent, and proposed the species as a whole is likely ancestral to modern wisent.^[8][2] However, other studies have disputed this attribution, restricting B. schoetensacki to Early and Middle Pleistocene remains.^[9]