Bison palaeosinensis
A bison is a large bovine in the genus Bison within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised.

Jack Dykinga · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- BisonPBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB, for Bison
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Bovidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At most 2.9 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 3.6 Mya and 774 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Bison palaeosinensis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Pliocene18%
- Pleistocene82%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Bison palaeosinensis and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Bison palaeosinensis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
50 taxa- Allactaga2 sites
- Canis chihliensis2 sites
- Elaphurus bifurcatus2 sites
- Elasmotherium2 sites
- Equus sanmeniensis2 sites
- Eucladoceros boulei2 sites
- Gazella sinensis2 sites
- Ochotona2 sites
- Ovis shantungensis2 sites
- Paracamelus gigas2 sites
- Spirocerus wongi2 sites
- Sus lydekkeri2 sites
- Acinonyx1 site
- Arvicolinae1 site
- Bohlinella1 site
- Canis palmidens1 site
- Cervus (Rusa) elegans1 site
- Chalicotheriidae1 site
- Circotherium1 site
- Coelodonta antiquitatis1 site
- Coelodonta nihowanensis1 site
- Cynailurus1 site
- Erinaceus1 site
- Eucyon minor1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Bison palaeosinensis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- New carnivoran remains from the Early Pleistocene Shanshenmiaozui site in Nihewan Basin, northern China1
- Les mammifères fossiles de Nihowan (Chine)1
Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Bison palaeosinensis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jack Dykinga
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Bison palaeosinensis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Bison”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itBison through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Teilhard de Chardin and Piveteau 1930