Yellowstone Country, USA

This scene is an original illustration set in Yellowstone Country, USA. It lies in mid-latitudes, where the climate is warm-summer humid continental.

A herd of bison with massive shoulder humps grazes head-down in a loose diagonal across a high meadow. A single tall white steam plume rises on the far side of the basin, and forested ridges close the horizon under a clear summer morning.

Why does a bison have a hump over its shoulders?

The shoulder hump is muscle anchored to elongated vertebrae, powering a head that sweeps snow aside to reach winter grass. A steam plume rising from open meadow with no industry near it is geothermal — groundwater heated by a shallow magma body. A grassy basin ringed by forest at this elevation, venting steam, sits inside an old volcanic caldera.

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