When Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch in January 2009, the marketing people did not know how to combine the two banks’ logos – a stylised American flag that resembles a ploughed field and the famous bull – and they did not want to kill Merrill’s iconic bovine, fearing alienated staff and clients.

In the end they decided to retain both symbols, but keep them separate. The bank's business cards, for example, have the "flagscape" on the front while the bull passant (to use the heraldic term for an animal with one foreleg raised) appears on the reverse.