Featured animal: Spotted Hyena

Spotted Hyena

Crocuta crocuta

 

Hyena. An animal that to many suggests cowardice, stupidity and laziness. Infamous as scavengers and grave robbers, Hyenas are feared and detested worldwide. Some see them as harbringers of evil or bad luck, whereas a few brave people actually tame them and keep them as pets. Whatever your views may be, I hope that this post will change a few minds about hyenas and the negative stigma attatched to them. This post will focus on the largest of the extanct hyena family,the Spotted Hyena. 

Basic Information

The spotted hyena is native to Sub Saharan Africa, and is most at home on the open savannah plains. Though they look vaugely dog like, hyenas are in fact a "feliform", a suborder of "cat like" carnivores. Thus, hyenas are in fact more closely related to cats and mongooses than dogs. The Spotted Hyena is a stocky animal around the same size as a wolf, with a thick neck, a large bulky head and long legs. The front legs of all Hyena species are a fair bit longer than their hind legs, which gives them a slightly sloped stance when walking. The coat of the Spotted Hyena is coarse, and can vary in colour from pale cream, to dark brown. The coat is variably spotted, as are the limbs. All hyena species have a crest running down their back, though the spotted's crest is generally not as large as the smaller heyena species. All the hyena species posess a scent gland just inside their rectum which is used to deposit a sticky liquid to mark territories.

The head of the Spotted Hyena is large, with rounded ears and a broad snout. The Spotted Hyena's teeth are excellently designed for crushing bone, and coupled with strong jaw muscles, the Spotted Hyena has a stronger bone crushing force than that of a brown bear. 

Spotted Hyena have good hearing,eyesight and an excellent sense of smell. Their eyes work better in lower light conditions, giving them good night vision. 

Spotted Hyenas are the most vocal of all the hyena species, and produce a wide variety of sounds, including the famous "laughing" sound. This sound is made when a hyena is nervous, rather than when they're amused. As well as this, Spotted hyenas use a variety of barks, whoops and howls to communicate with one another. Spotted Hyena have been known to emit alarm calls whilst feeding, as an attempt to prevent other hyenas approaching and trying to steal the kill. 

Unusually amongst mammals, the females of this species are larger, and more agressive than males. In historical times, scientists assumed that hyenas were hermaphrodites, due to the females have a "pseudo scrotum", and no external vagina, and so instead urinate, mate and give birth via this appendage. Even today, scientists have some trouble when sexing hyena, as in 2007 a pair of "male" Spotted Hyena at Monarto Zoo Australia, produced cubs! (Vets at Monarto Zoo also performed the first succesful ceaserian section of a Spotted Hyena earlier this year.)

Social behaviour

 Spotted Hyenas are the most sociable of the four hyena species, and live in loose groups known as "clans". Clans are female lead, and females in a clan are often related, whilst males will leave their birth clan to find another once they reach maturity. Clans are not fixed groups like wolf packs, and individuals will often hunt alone or roam throughout the clan's territory. Clans will often reside round abandoned burrows of Aardvarks or Warthogs, and it is within these burrows that cubs are brought together and nursed.

Clan society is highly ranked with females at the top of the hierachy, with even the lowest ranked females higher in status than the highest males of a group.

Spotted hyena cubs are born well developed, with their eyes open and already with a small set of teeth. Litters tend to be one or two cubs but the youngsters will begin fighting with one another shortly after birth, which can often end in the death of one sibling.Given that hyena cubs are so formidable, mother hyenas must be particularly tough!

Spotted hyenas in captivity have lived up to 25 years.

Diet & Hunting

Spotted Hyena are primarily carnivorous, and are highly effective hunters. Though given a reputation as a cowardly scavenger, Spotted Hyena hunt a range of prey, either alone or cooperatively. Smaller prey such as gazelle or rodents are hunted alone, whilst small groups will tackle wildebeest and antelope. Large groups of Hyena may even tackle young buffalo. Hunting is generally a rather slow affair, as Hyenas are not swift sprinters, but are more efficient over long distances. Hunting parties call to one another once they've spotted prey, and after a long chase begin eating their prey as soon as it has begun to fall to the ground. Spotted Hyena are not fussy eaters, and will totally clear a carcass, including horns, bones and skin. This makes them very efficent predators, as 100% of a kill will be eaten. When a clan makes a kill, the higher ranking members are naturally the first to feed, and the clan will consume as a carcass as quickly as possible before other hyenas or lions show up. Spotted Hyenas are very effective hunters, and will make succesful hunts more often than lions and other big cats.

As well as hunting, Hyenas will scavenge from carcasses, and will often watch circling vultures to help locate carrion. With their powerful teeth and crushing jaws, hyenas are excellently designed as scavengers, as they can eat all the tougher parts of an animal that other predators are not equipped to deal with. Subsequently, hyenas (along with other scavengers) are incredibly useful to the ecosystem. This scavenging behaviour has given hyenas of all species a bad reputation, as it was thought for many years that these creatures only fed from kills made by other predators.

Lions and Spotted Hyenas occupy the same ecological niche, and thus compete with one another for prey, due to their similar diet. Hyenas have a reputation for stealing lion kills, but it's quite often the other way round as well. The two species are renowned for acting agressivly towards one another, even without food around. 

Hyenas & humans

Hyenas and humans have a long history together. During the late Stone Age, early humans would have encountered Hyenas both in Africa and Europe. A much larger version of the Spotted Hyena, the Cave Hyena was present in Europe, and has been portrayed in some early rock art. Humans would have competed with these hyenas for both food and shelter, and eventually this species was driven to extinction. 

Throughout Western history, Hyenas have been associated with stupidity, greed and cowardice. African historical traditions vary greatly, some holding the hyena as a sacred creature, others as villans and tricksters. Due to the fact that Spotted Hyenas will often dig up corpses from graves, they've long been assosiated with death and bad spirits, and form an important part in many folklore in many countries.

Like most predators, Hyenas are shy of humans, but often come  into conflict with one another. The taking of livestock, occasional attacks on people, and reputed eating of human corpses has led to persecution of Spotted Hyena in some areas. Early scientists believed Spotted Hyenas to be hermaphrodites, and for centuries they were belived to be "unholy" creatures, and had a negative stigma attatched to them.  

In more recent times, Hyenas have been portrayed (incorrectly) in films such as "The Lion King" as idiotic, food obsessed villans, which has unfortunatley swayed the opinions of generations of children, who've grown up to belive Hyenas as the bane of the natural world. (See my comment on lions stealing kills from hyenas, how does that fit in your "circle of life" now Disney?)

Despite being associated with stupidity, Spotted Hyenas are reputedly quite intelligent, and captive animals have been observed cooperating together on problem solving tests. As well as this, scientific studies suggest that hyenas actually plan in advance which prey they are to hunt, and will display certain behaviours before specific hunts. Other reports suggest that Hyenas that have escaped traps or snares show an increased wariness of humans.Emminent Primateologist Dr Jane Goodall has stated that if she'd had the chance to go back and study another animal in depth as she had done with chimpanzees, she'd choose the Spotted Hyena, and she believes they are potentially as intelligent as Chimpanzees.

Hyenas in captivity

The best place to see Hyenas of any speces would be on safari in Africa, however, many of us have to settle for seeing them (along with many other animal species) in zoos. All species of hyena are currently displayed in captivity in Europe, with the Spotted being most commonly held. In the UK, we currently have all four species, but these are pretty few and far between. The only Spotted Hyenas can be seen at Colchester Zoo. There is a fair smattering of Hyenas kept in North America (the first Spotted Hyena I ever saw was at Toronto Zoo, Canada), and I belive that there are a few kept in zoos across Asia and Australasia.

Hopefully this post will change a few conceptions about Hyenas, and maybe one day the world will be a more hyena friendly place (I doubt it!)

For more information on Hyenas I would suggest:

"Hyena" by Mikita Brottman, published by Reakton Books.
"The life of Mammals" by David Attenborough

Many thanks for reading!