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Common Montana Misnomers.

Popping gophers with a .22 is a Montana staple—a rite of passage for many a youth in the Treasure State. But when you send one to the great beyond, did you know you’re not actually putting a gopher in its grave? Rather, it’s a Richardson’s ground squirrel, which resides in the Sciuridae family with the likes of chipmunks and marmots. True “gophers” belong to the family Geomyidae, which includes mice and kangaroo rats. We hunt those with mouse traps, not rifles. This is just one example of a misnomer—an inaccurate or downright wrong name or designation. Montana has a handful of them.

When people travel through Yellowstone, they often claim to seen herds of buffalo, but what they’re actually seeing are herds of bison. While both belong to the Bovidae family, they are not closely related. Buffalo are native to Africa and Asia, while bison reside in North America and Europe. Tourists who pet North America’s largest land-dwelling mammal are trampled and gored by bison, not buffalo.

The lions that roam the American continent are more closely related to a house cat than they are the king of the jungle.

Another misnomer is commonly applied to the world’s second-fastest land animal: the pronghorn. Many mistakenly call it an antelope, but pronghorn is the name biologists consider correct. Authentic antelope are members of the Bovidae family, just like buffalo, and they too reside in Asia and Africa. But the American “antelope” is actually the only survivor of a family of fleet-footed animals that sped across North America millions of years ago. Their closest relatives are the giraffe and Congolese okapi, the latter an equally-odd-looking ungulate known as a “forest giraffe.”

And how about North America’s mountain lions? Turns out those actually are in the same family as the African lions (Felidae), but they reside in the genus Puma, whereas African lions are in the genus Panthera. The lions that roam the American continent are more closely related to a house cat than they are the king of the jungle—which happens to be another misunderstanding, since lions don’t live in the jungle. Their habitats include savannahs, grasslands, and scrublands. But let’s not get too far down that rabbit (er, cat) hole, as we’re trying to stay within Montana.

Bridger Bowl is home to the Schlasman’s chairlift that skirts Slushman’s Ravine. But why the two different spellings?

Finally, while it’s not technically a misnomer, but rather a homophone, a locally-loved landmark warrants explanation. Bridger Bowl is home to the Schlasman’s chairlift that skirts Slushman’s Ravine. But why the two different spellings? The ravine came first—it was named after P.B. Schlasman, a German coal miner who was killed in 1885 during an avalanche in the gulley. The spelling, however, was altered to fit the phonetically pronounced name. When the chairlift opened in 2008, Bridger Bowl kept the true spelling in honor of the dead miner. Hence, Schlasman’s chair, but Slushman’s ravine.

There you have it—some common local misnomers. So, the next time you’re in Yellowstone, watch out for bison. When you’re sighting in your .22, know that you’re putting the Richardson’s ground squirrel in your crosshairs. And when you’re enjoying some B-Bowl cold smoke, give a toast to the gone-but-not-forgotten (just eponymously misrepresented) P.B. Schlasman.