🦬
American bison
Bison bison
Mammals · Near threatened
vs
🐃
Cape buffalo
Syncerus caffer
Mammals · Near threatened
2 clips name both of them
27 million views between them.
Level on mass: American bison 625 kg, Cape buffalo 646 kg.
To scale
Grid at 50 cm
50 cm
1 m
1.5 m
2 m
Silhouettes: PhyloPic — Jan A. Venter, Herbert H. T. Prins, David A. Balfour & Rob Slotow (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) (CC BY); others CC0.
American bison
1.66 m
at the shoulder
Human
1.70 m
full standing height
for scale
Cape buffalo
1.35 m
at the shoulder
Tale of the tape
Body mass
625 kg
🦬 American bison · COMBINE
646 kg
🐃 Cape buffalo · COMBINE
Shoulder height
1.66 m
🦬 American bison
1.35 m
🐃 Cape buffalo
Body length
2.9 m
🦬 American bison · COMBINE
2.96 m
🐃 Cape buffalo · COMBINE
Top speed
52 km/h
🦬 American bison
55 km/h
🐃 Cape buffalo
Maximum lifespan
33 yr
🦬 American bison · COMBINE
30 yr
🐃 Cape buffalo · COMBINE
Bars are sized against the larger of the two figures.
Animals caught on camera
Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Bovinae (subfamily), home to 81 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 8.2 million years ago.
Estimates range from 5.8 to 10 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).