Three large mammals in the world are commonly called “buffalo,” though each of them represents a different species. All of these are distantly related under the same family, Bovidae.
The Cape buffalo are found in Africa, known in scientific taxonomy by the Latin binomial Syncerus caffer. South Asia is home to two types of water buffalo: Bubalus arnee in the wild, and the domesticated species, Bubalus bubalis.
The American buffalo’s scientific name is Bison bison. But they are further divided into two subspecies. Bison bison athabascae, or wood bison, generally inhabit the northern forests of Canada. Those found on the Plains are Bison bison bison. (In Europe lives a different bison––Bison bonanus, often referred to as the wisent.)
The multitude of Indigenous tribes in what is now the lower 48 states spoke more than 300 distinct languages. Each tribe had its own name for the animal which they have co-evolved alongside for thousands of years. Having lived closely with them for so long, the Cheyenne used 27 different words for a buffalo, depending on its sex, age, or condition.
When European explorers began arriving in North America after 1490, they attached new names to these seemingly strange and fascinating mammals. Some Spanish explorers called them Vacas jorobadas for “humped-back cow.” The French referred to them as Le Boeuf sauvage, and sometimes buffel or buffelo, perhaps because, to some, the animals looked like a curly haired and humpbacked version of the Cape buffalo. Early English colonists adopted the name “buffalo”––and it stuck. By 1754 it had become so common that a book published by Mark Catesby, A Natural History of Carolina, is credited with the first usage of the word “buffalo” in print.