Why do we call bison buffalo when they're not?

Question

The "Buffalo" we see in the Midwest are actually bison, where buffalo are like the water buffalos in Africa.

Answer 1

basically what happened is that Europeans set out and colonised the world. In general the early settlers weren't the most educated bunch so they named the local animals of the various countries they settled in after the animals back home or after animals they thought they resembled. The European bison (or wisent) was at that stage pretty much extinct (it recovered with protection from hunting but is still very rare) so most people hadn't even really heard of it, but they had heard of buffaloes, so that is what they named the American bison after. They could just have easily come out being called "plains cows" or some other silly name. In the same way there are cod all over the world that aren't true cod, robins that aren't robins, wrens that aren't wrens, etc etc. Its just human nature to attach a familiar label to something new.

Answer 2

This is what happens when we just use common names. In the United States, when we say buffalo, we mean bison. We have buffalo nickels, cities named Buffalo, the historical Buffalo Bill Cody, buffalo hunts, phrases like, "He had me buffaloed," and so on. It's just common usage. We also use "bison", but not as often.

Answer 3

It would seem that, even though the term "buffalo" comes from Greek/European origin and is actually older than the term "bison", it could easily be attributed to European explorers and/or settlers in North America in the 17th century.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

in the zoological park where i worked we differentiated buffalo from bison by determining whether they had been domesticated.

buffalo are ranched for meat

bison are "wild" free range animals

Answer 6

Maybe, in the interest of not offending them, we should begin calling them Native American Bison.

Answer 7

Combination of ignorance and laziness.