Bison schoetensacki

Bison schoetensacki, commonly as the Pleistocene woodland bison or Pleistocene wood bison, was a species of bison that lived until 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:
Fossil of Bison schoetensacki at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart
Scientific classification Edit this 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

Fossils have been obtained from Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Moldova, Russia, Spain,[2][5] 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,[6] 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.[7][2] However, other studies have disputed this attribution, restricting B. schoetensacki to Early and Middle Pleistocene remains.[8]

References
  1. Roman Uchytel. "Pleistocene woodland bison". Prehistoric-Fauna.com. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
  2. Palacio, Pauline; Berthonaud, Véronique; Guérin, Claude; Lambourdière, Josie; Maksud, Frédéric; Philippe, Michel; Plaire, Delphine; Stafford, Thomas; Marsolier-Kergoat, Marie-Claude; Elalouf, Jean-Marc (2017-02-10). "Genome data on the extinct Bison schoetensacki establish it as a sister species of the extant European bison (Bison bonasus)". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 17 (1): 48. doi:10.1186/s12862-017-0894-2. ISSN 1471-2148. PMC 5303235. PMID 28187706.
  3. Leonardo Sorbelli, Marco Cherin, David M. Alba, Joan Madurell Malapeira, 2021, A review on Bison schoetensacki and its closest relatives through the early-Middle Pleistocene transition: Insights from the Vallparadís Section (NE Iberian Peninsula) and other European localities, edited by Danielle Schreve, Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 261, DOI:106933, The Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition in Mediterranean Europe
  4. Marsolier-Kergoat, Marie Claude (2017). Evolutionary Biology: Self/Nonself Evolution, Species and Complex Traits Evolution, Methods and Concepts. Springer International Publishing. pp. 187–198. ISBN 9783319615691.
  5. Leonardo Sorbelli, Marco Cherin, David M. Alba, Joan Madurell Malapeira, 2019, The Epivillafranchian Bison schoetensacki sample from the Vallparadís Section, The Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition in Mediterranean Europe
  6. Thun Hohenstein, Ursula; Di Nucci, Annarosa; Moigne, Anne-Marie (January 2009). "Mode de vie à Isernia La Pineta (Molise, Italie). Stratégie d'exploitation du Bison schoetensacki par les groupes humains au Paléolithique inférieur". L'Anthropologie (in French). 113 (1): 96–110. doi:10.1016/j.anthro.2009.01.009.
  7. Marsolier-Kergoat, Marie-Claude; Elalouf, Jean-Marc (2017), Pontarotti, Pierre (ed.), "The Descent of Bison", Evolutionary Biology: Self/Nonself Evolution, Species and Complex Traits Evolution, Methods and Concepts, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 187–198, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-61569-1_10, ISBN 978-3-319-61568-4, retrieved 2022-02-10
  8. Grange, Thierry; Brugal, Jean-Philip; Flori, Laurence; Gautier, Mathieu; Uzunidis, Antigone; Geigl, Eva-Maria (September 2018). "The Evolution and Population Diversity of Bison in Pleistocene and Holocene Eurasia: Sex Matters". Diversity. 10 (3): 65. doi:10.3390/d10030065.
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