How did the American bison come to be known by the name “buffalo”?
Most New World megafauna encountered by European settlers were given the same names as their European counterparts. For example, the American beaver was named because it resembled the European beaver, a distinct but similar-looking species. Likewise the American badger was named because settlers recognised it as roughly the same sort of badger from back home. The same can be said of the lynx, the deer, the weasel, and countless other animals.
So why, when there existed an almost identical animal in Europe known as the bison or wisent (the two words are cognates and synonyms), didn’t people use these names for the American version? Why call it “buffalo”, an African or Asian animal which Europeans would be unlikely to be familiar with, and which doesn’t particularly resemble an American bison?
While we’re at it, why did settlers call the animal with the scientific name Alces alces a “moose” when that exact same animal was already known by the name “elk” in Europe? Things really got screwed up when people discovered a new species of deer in North America, Cervus canadensis, and decided to call that an “elk”. So now the word “elk” refers to two completely different animals.
The North American elk may less confusingly be known as a “wapiti”. But it gets worse. Cervus canadensis is so closely related to the European red deer, Cervus elaphus, that some earlier taxonomists classed them as a single species, so why the different names? And why call the pronghorn an “antelope”, confusing it with the true antelopes, which live in Africa?
And then there’s Rangifer tarandus, known as a “caribou” in North America, and a “reindeer” in Europe. There, we can at least assume that the first English speakers to encounter them in North America weren’t familiar with European reindeer, and simply borrowed the native term. Ruminant terminology between the old and new worlds is screwed up.
That one makes some sense, since it does look like African antelopes. Only a few anatomical differences show that it is unrelated. Early explorers can be forgiven for making that mistake. Likewise calling the puma a mountain “lion,” even though it is not closely related to true lions.
The early colonists were not naturalists. They very frequently made such mistakes. Many of them may not have been familiar with the European counterparts.
It gets worse for birds. The Peregrine Falcon was called the Duck Hawk, the Merlin the Pigeon Hawk, and the American Kestrel was called the Sparrow Hawk, even though the European Sparrowhawk is not a falcon at all. The Northern Harrier was the Marsh Hawk. Worst of all, the Turkey Vulture was called the Turkey Buzzard, even though the European Buzzard is more closely related to the Red-tailed Hawk. The American Robin is not closely related to the European Robin, and our flucatchers, warblers, and orioles are not closely related to their Old World counterparts.
Yes, but one of the points I’ve made is that the colonists are more likely to have been familiar with a European counterpart than an African or Asian one, hence my confusion over why they named Bison bison after an African or Asian animal which they are unlikely to have encountered and which bore little resemblance, rather than a European animal which they are much more likely to have encountered and which is almost indistinguishable to the untrained eye.
Bison bonasus, the wisent, was by the time English colonies in North America were founded a very rare species … I believe there were herds in Poland and the Caucasus area, but AFAIK nowhere else. Bison bison, the American bison, was named for Bison bonasus.
Not necessarily. Wisent were extinct in western Europe by the 1300s. Only small herds survived in eastern Europe. The last one, in Poland, is the source of all present wisent. The wisent would have been a completely unfamiliar animal to most western Europeans, especially colonists from England.
Domestic water buffalo on the other hand were introduced to North Africa and the Middle East by 600 AD, and into Europe by the Middle Ages. In Europe they were most commonly kept in Italy, buffalo milk being the original source of mozzarella cheese.
In the 1600s and 1700s, domestic water buffalo would have been far more common and familiar in Europe than wisent. Although an English colonist might never have actually seen a buffalo, it is more likely he would have heard of that species than the wisent.
1.) That European “elk” were the same as American “Moose”. I thought Moose were unique to North America.
2.) That anything like the bison lived in Europe. Never heard of “wisent” before.
3.) A German co-worker insisted on calling a Moose an “Elch” (which is the direct translation, according to online dictionaries)
4.) A “brochure” printed in England in the 1600s advertising the wonders of America (in an effort to persuade people to become colonists and come on over – Ha!) said that there was a large animal unlike any in Europe called a “Moltke”, which I always assumed must be some sort of corruption of “Moose”
Until I became a Norwegian Elkhound* fan, neither did I. In fact, I once heard a story that Jefferson sent a poorly preserved moose to someone in Europe who was making cracks about American wildlife, which led me to believe the moose was a North American critter.
And it still seems strange that caribou are reindeer.
I’m told that “Norsk Elghund” = Norwegian Moosedog
I don’t know if it is true or not, but when I was taking a cruise to Alaska a few years ago, the guide on one of our land trips told us that a caribou and a reindeer was the same animal, but that they were called “caribou” when they were wild and “reindeer” when they were being herded by people.
That’s not the actual distinction. The species Rangifer tarandus is called “reindeer” in the Old World, and “caribou” in North America. However, the domesticated form is from the Old World, and hence is called reindeer (along with wild members of the species from that part of the world). In Alaska, all domesticated members of the species are reindeer, and all wild ones are caribou.
Maybe I’m being dense, but I still don’t get it. If I went to the wilds of Alaska and captured a caribou and put it in my backyard next to a reindeer I had bought from a herd being commercially raised, could you tell the difference?
Man from Arkansas has a farm where he raises pigs. He makes a good living from it, so good that he takes two weeks off in the fall to go up in the Ozarks and shoot wild boar. Difference/similarity is about the same.
Possibly. I believe there were originally a few varietal differences between the European and North American populations, and the domesticated ones have probably been selectively bred for desirable features. But not to the extent that some domesticated animals have been, and they would still obviously be the same creature. The differences between some of the wild populations have been reduced in that Alaska’s wild caribou herds were depleted in the late 19th century, and they were replenished by introducing reindeer imported from Europe, which interbred with the remaining native caribou.
BTW, I looked up the etymology of “caribou”. It’s derived from the Micmac word for the animal, and it was the French explorers who apparently borrowed the term. English speakers adopted it from the French.
