American bison skulls

A pile of American bison skulls, waiting to be ground for fertilizer. Photograph from the mid-1870s.

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American bison - An adult measures about nine feet from the muzzle to the insertion of the tail, and thirteen and a half feet to the end of the tail, including the hairs which extent about fifteen inches beyond the vertebras. The female measures about six and a half feet (about two metres) from the muzzle to the insertion of the tail, and about seven feet (two and one sixth metres) to the end of the tail, including the hairs, which extend about ten inches beyond the vertebra.

The height of the male at the highest part of the hump is about five and a half to six feet (about two metres) of the female at the same point about five feet (about one and a half metres). The height of the male at the hips is about four and two-thirds feet (nearly one and a half metres) of the female at the same point about four and a half feet (about one and a third metres). Audubon states the weight of old males to be nearly two thousand pounds, that of the full-grown fat females to be about twelve hundred pounds.

Text via: History of the American bison: bison americanus. Authors: Joel Asaph Allen, Geological Survey (U.S.) Publisher: Govt. print. off., 1877 Original from: the University of Michigan. Digitized: Jun 22, 2007. Length: 145 pages. Subjects: American bison.