©2006 Ruth B. McDowell

I encountered this skeleton of a Berengian Steppe Bison at a museum in the Yukon in 2005. The Steppe Bison migrated over the Bering Land Bridge about 136,000 years ago into the North American continent where they thrived for many years. But about 37,000 years ago, during a warm period before the last Ice Age, they died out apparently due to the changing climate. Fossilized remains are found in the permafrost of Alaska and the Yukon. An ancestor of present day American Bison.