Bison schoetensacki, commonly as thePleistocene woodland bison orPleistocene wood bison, was a species ofbison that lived from the EarlyPleistocene to at least the earlyMiddle Pleistocene from western Europe to southern Siberia.[1] Its presence in theLate Pleistocene is debated.[2]
B. schoetensacki was generally similar to extantEuropean bison in shape although there could have been morphological variations among European bisons during lateEarly Pleistocene andEarly Holocene.[3]
In comparison toB. 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]
Despite its common name,B. schoetensacki was probably not a mix-feeder, like the extant Americanwood bison. Instead, dental mesowear of the species shows similar pattern to that of extantEuropean bison, agrazer.[1]
During the Late Early and Early Middle Pleistocene,B. schoetensacki was the most common large bovid in Europe.[5] Fossils have been obtained fromCzech Republic,England,France,Germany,Greece,Italy,Moldova,Russia,Spain,[2][6] and mass excavations from the Paleolithic site of Isernia in Italy, dating back to around 700,000 years ago, indicateB. schoetensacki was the most heavily targeted animal by human hunters,[7] as European bison likely didn't inhabit theItalian andIberian Peninsulas.[1]
Ranges ofB. schoetensacki andsteppe bison presumably overlapped for some extents.[1]
A 2017 study which attributed Late Pleistocene European remains toB. schoetensacki found it to belong to a mitochondrial clade which is the sister group to modernwisent, and proposed the species as a whole is likely ancestral to modern wisent.[8][2] However, other studies have disputed this attribution, restrictingB. schoetensacki to Early andMiddle Pleistocene remains.[9]
^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
^Marsolier-Kergoat, Marie Claude (2017).Evolutionary Biology: Self/Nonself Evolution, Species and Complex Traits Evolution, Methods and Concepts. Springer International Publishing. pp. 187–198.ISBN978-3-319-61569-1.
^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
^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,ISBN978-3-319-61568-4, retrieved2022-02-10{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
