Mammoth fauna, Russia
Steppe bison skeleton
Bison priscus
Bulls of the steppe bison reached two tonnes in weight and horns spanning more than a metre.
5 000 000 ₽ · By order
- Epoch
- Pleistocene
- Age
- ≈ 800–10 thousand years ago
- Origin
- Russia
- Classification
- Bison priscus, steppe bison
- Habitat
- The mammoth steppe of the Pleistocene
- Ref.
- R–0615
The mammoth steppe of the Pleistocene, from Europe to Siberia. Across it grazed herds of the steppe bison Bison priscus — one of the most massive animals of glacial Eurasia.
Large bulls weighed about a tonne and stood more than two metres at the withers, while the span of their long upswept horns exceeded a metre. This beast is one of the most frequent subjects of Palaeolithic cave painting.
The set of bones is complete — from the massive skull with horns spanning more than a metre to the limbs. It clearly reveals the animal’s proportions, the carriage of the head, and the line of the back as they were in the mammoth steppe.
The species existed roughly from 800,000 to 10,000 years ago and is very well known to science; the skeleton allows us to consider not isolated bones, but the complete form of a large Pleistocene herbivore.
As found
The steppe bison in the same staging as the skeleton: a high hump, heavy horns. A cold steppe, wind in the dry grass.