Bison latifrons

 Bison latifrons was a species of bison common across North America during the Pleistocene, becoming extinct with many other megafauna at the end of the last ice age. Bison latifrons would have been clearly recognizable as a relative to today’s bison with a few very important and noticeable differences. For starters, Bison latrifons was enormous. Its mass has been estimated to have been up to 4000 pounds with a height at the shoulders of 8 feet with a horn span, measured from tip to tip of 8 feet as well. This makes Bison latifrons one of the largest or possibly the largest species of bovid that ever existed.

I was originally commissioned by the Cincinnati Museum Center to create a sculpture of Bison latifrons showing a lifelike appearance of the animal on one side of its body and a skeletal Bas relief on the other.  In 2022, I re-sculpted the skeletal relief side to reconstruct the overall life appearance of the bison on both sides of its body. To create this sculpture, I had access to a couple of invaluable resources. First, I used an interactive 3-D scan of a composite skeleton of Bison latifrons made available through the Idaho Museum of Natural History with funding assistance from the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation. Secondly, I had the technical expertise of Glenn Storrs, the vertebrate paleontologist with the Cincinnati Museum Center. For reconstruction of the soft tissue and integument, I looked at visual imagery from the American plains bison, the wood bison, the European bison or wisent, and lastly from cave paintings of the steppe bison. 

I also sculpted a base very similar to a base I created for a bison sculpture from early in my career because, when displayed together, it serves to emphasize the size difference between these two bison species. That early sculpture called “Veteran Bull Bison” portrays an older adult American Plains Bison, (Bison bison bison). Plains bison bulls stand about six feet high at the shoulder and weigh approximately two thousand pounds. It was not intentional but this early sculpture and my recent Bison latifrons sculpture are at close to the same scale. I have viewed live bison quite a bit. When I sculpted Bison bison bison I studied and photographed bison herds in Yellowstone National Park. I also traveled to Kentucky’s Big Bone Lick State Park to study a captive bison herd kept there. An adult bull bison is a big, powerfully built and impressive animal. When placed side by side however, Bison latifrons dwarfs the giants we have living today. Truly amazing!

I like this sculpture, it is exciting and captures what an impressive animal this species of bison really was.