Bison have a shaggy, dark brown winter coat, and a lighter weight, lighter brown summer coat. Bison can reach up to 2 metres (6½ ft) tall, 3 metres (10 ft) long and weigh 900 to 2,000 lbs (400 to 900 kg). The biggest specimens on record have weighed as much as 1140 kg (2,500 lb). The heads and forequarters are massive, and both sexes have short, curved horns, which they use in fighting for status within the herd and for defense. Bison mate in August and September; a single reddish-brown calf is born the following spring, and it nurses for a year. Bison are mature at three years of age, and have a life expectancy of approximately 15 years in the wild and up to 25 years in captivity.

 

The bison inhabited the Great Plains of the United States and Canada in massive herds, ranging from the Great Slave Lake in Canada's far north to Mexico in the south, and from eastern Oregon almost to the Atlantic Ocean, taking its subspecies into account. Its two subspecies are the Plains Bison (Bison bison bison), distinguished by its smaller size and more rounded hump, and the Wood Bison (Bison bison athabascae), distinguished by its larger size and taller square hump. With their huge bulk, Wood Bison are surpassed in size only by the massive Asian Gaur and wild water buffalo, both of which are found mainly in India and Southeast Asia.

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