Latest Spotted Hyena Stories
Michigan State University In the southern Rift Valley of Kenya, the Maasai people, their livestock and a range of carnivores, including striped hyenas, spotted hyenas, lions and bat-eared foxes, are coexisting fairly happily according to a team of coupled human and natural systems researchers. “I wouldn’t call the results surprising,” said Meredith Evans Wagner, a visiting scholar from the University of Florida in the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) at...
Watch the video "Studying Hyena Problem Solving Skills" April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Historically, tests on an animal’s ability to problem solve have been conducted on captive animals. Recently, however, a shift has been made among researchers who are now trying to run those tests on animals in their native habitats. A new study from scientists at Michigan State University and the University of California, Berkeley has found vast differences between the...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers from Michigan State University working in Kenya have shown for first time that groups of hyenas possess different odor-producing bacterial communities within their scent glands that they use to communicate everything from age to social status. “A critical component of every animal’s behavioral repertoire is an effective communication system,” said Kevin Theis, an MSU molecular biologist. “It is possible that...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Trying many different solutions is required for solving innovative problems. That’s true for humans and now researchers from Michigan State University show that it is also true for hyenas Steel puzzle boxes with raw meat inside were presented to wild spotted hyenas in Kenya. The hyenas had to slide open a bolt latch to get the meat. Only nine out of 62 hyenas succeeded even though most of the animals had many opportunities to...
As large, carnivorous mammals, spotted hyenas are well known for their competitive nature; however, recent work suggests that their clan structure has similarities to some primate social systems such as those of the baboon and macaque. San Diego Zoo Global researchers have documented relatedness between individuals and how this factor appears to influence their social behaviors. "Understanding how animal social systems work is an important part of learning what we need to know to conserve...
A 3.6-million-year-old woolly rhinoceros fossil discovered in Tibet in 2007 indicates that some giant mammals may have evolved in the Tibetan highlands before the beginning of the Ice Age, according to experts. In a paper published on September 2 in the magazine Science, paleontologists from the Natural History Museum (NHM) of Los Angeles County and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who discovered the rhino’s complete skull and lower jaw, argue that the beast adapted to global...
When it comes to producing more offspring, larger female hyenas outdo their smaller counterparts.A new study by Michigan State University researchers, which appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society, revealed this as well as defined a new way to measure spotted hyenas' size."This is the first study of its kind that provides an estimate of lifetime selection on a large carnivore," said MSU graduate student Eli Swanson, who published the paper with MSU faculty members Ian Dworkin and Kay...
Acoustic analysis of the 'giggle' sound made by spotted hyenas has revealed that the animals' laughter encodes information about age, dominance and identity. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Ecology recorded the calls of 26 hyenas in captivity and found that variations in the giggles' pitch and timbre may help hyenas to establish social hierarchies.Frédéric Theunissen, from the University of California at Berkeley, USA, and Nicolas Mathevon, from the Université Jean...
U.S. evolutionary anthropologists say they've discovered spotted hyenas outperform primates on cooperative problem-solving tests. Duke University scientists led by Associate Professor Christine Drea said captive pairs of spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) that needed to tug two ropes in unison to earn a food reward cooperated successfully and learned the maneuvers quickly with no training. And the researchers discovered experienced hyenas even helped inexperienced partners do the trick. When...
Spotted hyenas may not be smarter than chimpanzees, but a new study shows that they outperform the primates on cooperative problem-solving tests.Captive pairs of spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) that needed to tug two ropes in unison to earn a food reward cooperated successfully and learned the maneuvers quickly with no training. Experienced hyenas even helped inexperienced partners do the trick.When confronted with a similar task, chimpanzees and other primates often require extensive...
Latest Spotted Hyena Reference Libraries
The southern reedbuck (Redunca arundinum), also known as the common reedbuck or the rietbok, is a species of antelope that can be found in southern Africa. Its range extends from Tanzania and Gabon to South Africa, including Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Namibia, and Zambia, among other areas. It prefers a habitat within grasslands, woodlands, pastures, and valleys. This species uses reeds and other tall vegetation located near water to remain hidden from predators....
The plains zebra (Equus quagga) is native to Africa, and is the most common zebra found. Its range extends from southern Ethiopia to East Africa, with a southern range including Angola and eastern South Africa. Its other common names include Burchell’s zebra and the common zebra. The plains zebra holds six recognized subspecies including Grant’s zebra and the maneless zebra. The plains zebra and the mountain zebra are classified in the subgenus Hippotigris and appear to be more...
The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) is closely related to the brown hyena. It lives in northern Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and western India. It is extinct in Europe, but can occasionally be spotted in Anatolia, Turkey. Striped hyenas are largely scavengers, but will also eat small animals, fruit and insects. They are nomadic, moving from water hole to water hole, but never straying more than 6 miles from one. Striped hyenas hunt in solitude but do congregate in small family groups. Like...
The spotted hyena, or laughing hyena, (Crocuta crocuta) is the largest and best-known member of the hyena family. The spotted hyena ranges in size from 3.1 to 5 ft (95 to 150 cm) long along the head-and-body and stands from 2.5 to 3 ft (75 to 90 cm) at the shoulder. The normal weight range for the male is 100 to 132 lb (45 to 60 kg). The females normally weigh from 121 to 165 lb (55 to 75 kg). Some exceptionally large females have been in the ballpark of 200 lb (90 kg). Behavior The...
The African Buffalo or Cape Buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is a bovid from the family of the Bovidae. It is up to 5.6 ft (1.7 meters) high, 9.8 ft (3 meters) long, and can reach a weight of 1.1 tons (1000 kilograms). On average, an adult male stands about 5 ft (1.5 m) high at the shoulder and weighs 1,500lbs (680 kg), while a female is .3-.5 ft (10 - 15 cm) shorter and weighs between 1,100-1,300 pounds 500 - 600 kg. The Cape Buffalo is not closely related to the Asian Water Buffalo, but its...
