What does a proper buffalo do when it's steaming hot outside? Wallow, baby! Yeah!
Just find a spot of dirt outside, get down and roll around. You get one dirty bison but one that's cooled down and insect free.
Here's what it means when a buffalo gets down and dirty, according to Dale Lott in American Bison: A Natural History:
"Wallows are shallow pits where bison have torn away the soil with their horns and where the subsoil, dried by the sun and stirred by hooves and horns, turns to a flourlike dust. Bison wallow in the summer, especially during the middle of the day. Wallowing puts soil into and onto their coat. They can work so much nice, dry, powdery soil into their coat that as they walk away from the wallow it cascades down, jarred loose by each step. I have always thought bison were wallowing to make their hair a lousy place for lice and other parasites. I still think that's likely, but wallowing may also lower their heat load."
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