“Congressman Nunez, there is someone here to see you about a lawsuit.”
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The Way of the Cloven Hoof, classic.
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Looking to buy some high-end crockery
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After posting, I had to look it up. I found this:
How to Tell the Difference Between Bulls, Cows, Steers and Heifers (wikihow.com)
It agrees with you except on one point:
Ox and Oxen are not a different species. They are bulls (usually, occasionally cows) that are trained to pull carts or other loads. They are castrated but at a later date than heifers so as to allow them to grow more muscular.
Other minor points are that the article makes a big deal about bulls not always having horns.
The supposed generic for an unknown individual is “bovine” but the article points out that almost no pros use bovine but say “the animal” or “creature” or other and non-pros tend to use cow.
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Bovine is more general though – it includes other related species like yak, buffalo, and kudu. Though oddly not musk oxen which are caprines.
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As @chenille said above. They may not be different species in the phyla/genus/species sense of the word, but they are a very different animal not native to the same areas as North American domesticated cattle.
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Oh, I didn’t actually say anything about them – musk oxen are also not oxen. 
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Apologies, I read your post too quickly.
Well anyway, I stand by my non-technical definition that oxen are different in the same way that dogs and wolves different. If I’m wrong about this, well, it was a nice hill while I had it but I ain’t dyin’ for it. 
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… that a new course is being considered: Cow Avoidance 101
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There are things like Musk Ox which are a different animal and there is an Ox which is a draft animal.
The latter is a job description like “plumber”. You can take a young bovine of various breed or species and train them to wear a yoke and pull a cart or a plow. Then that thing would be an Ox.
You don’t see many oxen any more because it takes a lot of training over years and farmers can use tractors instead.
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To bring the cows home, you just need some mooo-sic.
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I suspect cultural or other factors as well, because our family farm pre-dates machinery, and my grandfather started with animals, as did all his neighbours. However none of them were oxen, it was all draft horses. I don’t know if draft horses were easier to get in the area, or the training was available, or what. But I’ve never seen oxen, even on farms that old, which is probably why I assumed they were a different animal. I’ve only ever seen them in wood cuts of medieval European and middle eastern farms. I’m sure they were used somewhere in North America, but maybe weren’t as common as draft horses.
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Never share a fire, kids.
“… it will happen to you”
Draft horses are more efficient than Oxen. They are also faster. They were not used until the invention of the padded horse collar during the Middle Ages. If you put a yoke on a horse it chokes itself when trying to pull heavy things. The collar is the thing you see Clydesdales wearing. Clydesdales are bred to pull heavy loads. Also people in the Middle Ages tended not to have horses unless they were knights or nobility, but had to have cows. You could milk the cows, keep one male alive as a bull, train a pair of males to be oxen and eat (or sell) the other males.
The first time I saw oxen in real life was in a living historic farm. They showed some young oxen and showed us the miniature yokes they had them wear when they were calves to get them used to wearing them. I suspect living farm museums would be one of the few places you would see oxen in the USA.
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Oh I know- I’ve tacked up draft horses. I know my pelham bits from my overgirths. 
They were bred for size, but also temperament. Draft horses are the calmest, most lovely animals you can imagine. It’s amazing to see something so gentle pull a two bottom plow like it’s nothing. We do an eight horse hitch every year at the local farm show and it brings tears to my eyes every time.
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I don’t know why but I immediately assumed the cow was the universities mascot who was having a bad day so they warned the students.
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