The Undegooglables
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Episode 120 · November 20, 2021

Feeling Yammy

On a road trip past bison, the hosts try to work out the difference between a buffalo and a bison.

“So what we've been doing by calling a buffalo nickel a buffalo nickel has been wrong the entire time.” (12:47)

Questions

What is the difference between a buffalo and a bison? (00:45)

Our guess
They are the same animal or very closely related, with different horns, humps and geography.
Reveal the answer
The answer
They are different animals and not closely related. True buffalo (Cape and water buffalo) are native to Africa and Asia, while bison are native to North America; early European explorers mislabeled American bison as "buffalo". Britannica distinguishes them by the three H's: home, hump and horn.
Verdict wrong

Listen to the episode

Transcript (auto-generated)
[00:06] Oh, we doing under Google rules that was the playa super excited told us we had to
[00:17] say we said we signed up for it in the end it's gonna be better and more true
[00:25] than Google can give you driving out west to see my friend and Forster
[00:35] Harper and I was seeing lots of buffaloes and or bison potentially and I was
[00:45] wondering if we could break down the difference between a buffalo and a bison
[00:50] are the same for buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo is buffaloes or buffalo bison is
[01:00] by Cena I think is this plural of bison it really no you're about to throw me for
[01:08] a damn loop over here you said authoritative with that just bullshit
[01:12] okay bison is bison and buffalo is buffalo I believe I don't think there's
[01:17] buffaloes or bisons and we're not just in like a heifer cow bowl situation no I
[01:26] don't think so no no I don't think a steer do you think they're different
[01:29] species we think they're different I think there's yeah so it's not like a
[01:32] male-female differentiation I don't think so but I don't really know that's why I
[01:36] asked you guys because yeah all the cows have a million different names buffalo and
[01:43] by all over the everyone everyone yeah I mean everyone that's own probably is a
[01:47] different mm-hmm no but steer and heifer and bill a lot of them are named LC you
[01:54] know yeah cows are baby cows are named Joey's right so that was a solid hand the
[02:07] baton off on this thing he's on this thing buffalo and bison so I mean they're
[02:16] if nothing else they're very very similar like they're big cow type creatures
[02:23] hairy they got horns I probably got the humps they both got humps I don't know I
[02:30] feel like the bison has a hump and a buffalo doesn't have a hump okay I feel
[02:34] like a buffalo which they say they have a hump do they they just have like they've
[02:39] got some sort of not like a camel like their their their neck muscles have to
[02:47] be so big because their head is so huge in order to like hold them up well but I
[02:51] also think that like the neck muscle like I don't know if there's a water
[02:55] property to what they're doing in there like a camel but definitely part of it
[02:59] is not just holding up the gigantic head it's also forcing that gigantic head
[03:03] into like the murder part of another thing in size right sure sure because
[03:10] you got to murder that other guy to be so is one potential differentiation that
[03:17] bison have horns and buffalo don't a hundred I feel good or the other way I've
[03:23] seen it so we have a buffalo nickel I don't remember seeing horns on the
[03:27] buffalo nickel so do you still have the neck bump thing if you don't have the
[03:31] horns like you do you're just headbutting like a dumbass sheep yeah
[03:36] okay I think so so animals are dumb okay Roger the other potential difference I
[03:49] guess would be territory there's got to be a geographical difference like West
[03:55] isn't that when we met the bison and the buffalo out in the American West yeah
[03:59] but the West is huge yeah exactly so maybe it's like one side of the Rockies
[04:03] and the other okay I don't know fair enough all right so so you got bison on
[04:08] the front half and buffalo on the back half or maybe it's an elevation thing
[04:13] maybe like yeah one or like low down and the other I was gonna think more
[04:16] longitudinally maybe or I'm sorry latitudinally because probably one is
[04:20] more equipped for a colder climate hmm or maybe even just the north south of the
[04:27] Rockies you've got the equivalent of a mountain goat for buffalo mm-hmm cuz I feel
[04:34] like buffaloes are on a boat okay so right so the University of Colorado are
[04:42] the buffalo right that's their mascot so they buffalo must be roaming around that
[04:47] range so Howard University are the bison and I know there's a couple
[04:56] awesome bison statute there's like an awesome bridge and DC I forget which
[05:01] bridge it is but that goes over the Potomac that has like bison on it so
[05:06] Howard Howard's in DC it's in DC okay hmm okay so maybe we killed the bison
[05:12] first and that's why we don't know anything about them and then we have to
[05:15] go through a little later but those still exist we killed a lot of them right
[05:20] but but I was just I saw one though out in New York too oh they're also in New
[05:26] York is that what you said well there's a city the city but that's a very very
[05:30] good point excellent point I would argue that's not a city because it's not
[05:34] livable in any meaningful human sense but I know what you mean it's a frozen
[05:42] house yeah shout out to our Buffalo listeners shout out go bills no yeah
[05:54] well it's a bill there was Buffalo bill that's also a good question Buffalo bill
[05:58] is probably a guy yeah I think he was out west and so how did he end up
[06:05] naming a team out east so I think I think Coalson do you have the same thing
[06:11] you think they're the same thing just different names okay because you because
[06:16] you your argument Jason is gonna be that they're very closely related and I get
[06:20] that I'm saying they're the same effing thing and we've just one of them had
[06:27] horns and we freaked out so I mean I was also going to make that argument
[06:32] what does that mean what have had horns and we freaked out I think we freaked out
[06:36] I think we were like oh my god that has horns which must be something else and so
[06:39] we need a bison yeah I mean now you're gonna get my annoying okay what makes a
[06:43] species a species thing is that it can't procreate with the other thing that's a
[06:46] species what's a bison and Buffalo produce another Buffalo or bison no I
[06:52] bet they buy some weird bastard thing we need to figure out it creates Buffalo
[06:56] bill okay hmm hmm and as we know from science of
[07:02] lambs it murders everything right I'm excited to know don't breathe in the
[07:05] Buffalo breed apparently a serial killer yeah all right the bison puts the lotion
[07:13] in the
[07:23] so are we it seems like we're split so Coalson's on team they're all the same
[07:29] he's just in he's just in with bison's have horns these buffaloes don't but
[07:37] you're saying they're the same but you're are you am I understand this right you
[07:41] think they're the same thing but the ones that have horns are called
[07:44] something else because we fucked up we I'm sorry that's that's not useful we
[07:50] panicked as a naming species and screwed it up okay I'm not gonna go with
[08:00] you on that okay also guessing we came up with as a white people came up with
[08:05] bison versus Buffalo in 1812 okay so even though the natives have yeah I'm
[08:17] gonna be yeah some differentiation going back to like the 17th century I'm
[08:22] just saying natives have had different ideation I'm saying white people have
[08:26] differentiated since the 17th century all right I'm going night I'm going 1812
[08:30] okay so in a Coalson esque twist everybody's great everybody wins according
[08:41] to the National Zoo old world true buffalo meaning Cape Buffalo and water
[08:49] buffalo are native to Africa and Asia what whereas bison are found in North
[08:54] America but we have mixed them up over the years so historians believe that
[09:01] early European explorers are to blame and they called usually the bison in
[09:08] North America Buffalo and then it's it's gone on this is like the yam thing
[09:19] yeah now bring Buffalo over and then it became a thing where now we have bison
[09:27] and Buffalo are we still calling bison Buffalo we are still calling bison
[09:34] so like so we never brought over the Colorado Buffalo is actually there's a
[09:39] bison but we could definitely I mean I feel like we could bring over I mean
[09:42] they'd look similar no I mean I feel like we could bring one over and they're
[09:45] gonna bang it out fine oh they definitely should bang it out and
[09:48] create some sort of weird you know Quasimodo type fluffy bison Buffalo
[09:57] hybrid I went with Quasimodo because he had a hump apparently the sentence
[10:07] Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo is grammatically
[10:13] correct nailed it what now it's gonna take me a second to figure it out but
[10:24] so Buffalo can be a verb means and also a noun I guess wait what's the verb
[10:30] Buffalo is to Buffalo someone is to confuse or fluster a person okay so the
[10:38] buffalo can buffalo a buffalo right which could in turn buffalo another buffalo
[10:42] right and on and on and on okay for me to poop on I guess yeah if you get
[10:55] enough buffaloeing someone's got a poop sounds it sounds true there's there's the
[11:02] buffalo cow patty okay so okay the sentence Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo
[11:11] Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo really mean okay so it's Buffalo who live in Buffalo for
[11:19] example at the Buffalo Zoo yeah who are buffaloed in a unique way to Buffalo New
[11:29] York by other buffalo from Buffalo sure that sells buffalo so we we're using it
[11:37] as an adjective yeah potentially an adverb in there it's strong
[11:44] nice there was a gerund I think so do they both have horns yes we're on we
[11:54] everybody has ice and have shorts right short horns and then the Cape Buffalo
[11:59] have and water buffalo have horns that look like a handlebar mustache okay
[12:05] according to the male and female or is there sexual dichotomy there good
[12:10] question assuming there's sexual dichotomy but what you're saying to me is
[12:14] that's because you're a sexist I know I agree with that but what you're saying
[12:17] to me is that we don't have actual buffalo in North America correct there's
[12:24] the water buffalo that we're thinking of in Africa and then right and then
[12:30] something called the Cape Buffalo from yeah which looks like oh yeah we
[12:38] probably have called these things like a canoe or something are they that I like
[12:47] those dudes that's a water buffalo I mean it just got like a weird part yeah
[12:53] exactly yeah he's got a huge his horns look like hair yeah it looks like a hidey
[12:58] hair yeah that's what I was thinking I was thinking of a water buffalo but
[13:01] you're saying that that's water buffalo look very similar okay so what we've
[13:05] been doing by calling a buffalo nickel a buffalo nickel has been wrong the
[13:09] entire time it's actually a bison nickel yep so I like we're breaking America
[13:18] right now I think I like I like this article from Britannica said it's not
[13:25] difficult to distinguish between the buffalo and the bison if you focus on
[13:30] the three H's home hump and horn yep that's how I date is that on your
[13:41] profile not yet it will be by the time this goes to air and also this song the
[13:54] home on the range the Buffalo don't even roam here right hmm yeah that is
[13:58] messed up huh so it's the bison yeah so they are not closely related
[14:07] apparently which is weird that is weird see I see I thought I thought we were
[14:12] gonna come out of this where Jason was like look it's like the llama in the
[14:16] alpaca stop being an idiot they're closely related they're whatever and
[14:21] what we learned is they're not closely related at all they're different animals
[14:27] and one is from Africa and the white people just named the bison buffalo yep
[14:35] okay and so there are no buffalo in North America correct those are bison and
[14:43] their horns are typically sharp and short and they're not as humpy not in
[14:49] the sex sense in the neck I feel like some bison are super humpy I mean they
[14:55] wouldn't be American otherwise that's right
[14:59] they got that American sex track okay so and the reasoning is to allow the head
[15:06] to function as a plow sweet sweeping away drifts of snow in the winter oh okay
[15:12] sure that's not what I thought that was for I thought I was for killing I think
[15:17] they also yeah fight oh also for killing okay as long as it's also for
[15:22] killing very American don't mess with a frickin bull moose they're frickin huge
[15:33] I mean most people have seen a bull moose no matter I don't know how many people
[15:37] they're listening have seen it it's a massive and so what I'm saying is also
[15:41] probably don't mess with the bison I guess is the story that I'm telling
[15:44] definitely which which animals do you recommend we mess with I mean the small
[15:49] ones okay I was yeah chihuahua's rabbits squirrels things that can't hurt you
[15:57] really like records oh no I mean they will claw your eyes out