The largest and strongest of modern hyenas - spotted - weighs from 50 to 90 kg. In the blood of female spotted hyenas, the content of the male hormone testosterone is very high, which affects behavior: it increases aggressiveness and increases physical strength.
Area and habitat of hyenas
Hyenas live in different areas in different ways. For example, in the Ngorongoro Crater (East Africa) and a number of other places rich in food, they gather in large flocks called clans. It includes from 10 to 100 animals.
Each clan has its own territory, which is actively labeled by its members and is protected from neighbors. Sometimes between neighboring clans, a fierce struggle arises for it. These are real battles, in which the main forces of rival packs participate, fights lead to serious injuries and death of participants. Winners win additional space and mark it. In the future, if success is consolidated, the victorious flock can hunt in this zone.
Spotted hyenas also have clans on the Serengeti plains, but they do not unite all hyenas in the area. A significant part of them follows the migrating herds of zebras, wildebeests and other antelopes and does not adhere to a specific territory. There are also so-called seasonal workers who have their own plots and shelters, but periodically make distant (up to 80 km) exits from them in search of prey.
In South Africa, in the Kalahari desert, spotted hyenas do not form permanent flocks at all and often hunt alone, although even there, when attacking large prey, they group in groups of up to 20-25 animals.
What do hyenas eat?
It used to be that spotted hyenas feed mainly on carrion, often content with lion prey. More recent research by scientists has shown that this is not so. Of course, hyenas love carrion and whenever possible always pick it up, but they are wonderful hunters themselves. So, in Ngorongoro these predators get more than 80% of the diet themselves, and they can hunt for zebras, wildebeests, other species of antelopes and even such large and strong animals as African buffaloes, fighting off young stock from the herd. A herd of zebras is chased by a flock of hyenas that runs scattered, surrounding the zebras with a crescent. If one of them fights off the jamb, hyenas attack it.
Stamina Hyenas
Despite the apparent clumsiness, spotted hyenas can reach speeds of up to 64 km / h and have tremendous strength and vitality. So, African wildlife explorer Jane Lavik Goodall watched as a hyena chasing a zebra received a powerful hoof in the head, which threw her back and made her tumble in the air, but she instantly jumped to her feet and continued the chase.
Social structure
The hyena clan is a formidable force. When there are a lot of them, they become very bold and decisive, even attack groups of lions and take away their “legitimate" prey. True, this happens, as a rule, if there is no adult male or several males among the lions. It happens, and vice versa, when the lions take away from the hyenas recently caught animals.
With other predators in Africa, hyenas "understand" relatively easily.Even one hyena can take prey from the leopard, easily drive the cheetah away. Only a flock of hyena dogs is able to withstand hyenas, and even then only with numerical superiority.
Types of Hyenas
Striped hyena
Striped and brown hyenas belong to the same genus. Both of them are approximately the same size and weigh up to 50-60 kg. They are not so strong and feed mainly on carrion, small or weakened animals, not very large ungulates and their cubs. Oddly enough, but these predators and scavengers are also gourmets: they love fruits and vegetables (in particular, wild watermelons and melons growing in the Kalahari desert, or cultivated melons and watermelons with melon in Central Asia).
They live, as a rule, in pairs or in small groups, looking for food mainly alone. During the day, hyenas relax in shelters that are located in grottoes, caves, porcupine burrows. They themselves have perfectly mastered the "earthworks" and always equip their homes to their taste.
The striped hyena living in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, on the family site always has several so-called towns, each of which consists of burrows and other shelters. The family changes these towns, moving from time to time from one to another. The cubs are in a town in one of the holes. They, like all kids, love to play and do it sometimes in the daytime. True, they do not go far from their home. Hyenas have a surprisingly flexible and mobile neck.
The struggle of farmers reduced the number of striped hyenas, a species listed in the International Red Book. Viable populations are currently preserved in Kalahari and Kruger National Park.
Brown hyena
Like the striped, brown hyena, it is mainly scavenger and a “gatherer” of mainly small prey: insects, bird eggs, rodents, and small antelope cubs. Brown hyenas hunt and seek food alone. At the same time, the beast travels more than 30 km per night. The brown hyena habitat is large - 220-250 km2. There are shelters, trails and permanent latrines, which play an important role as information exchange points. Odor marking is of particular importance in the lives of these predators, and they spend a lot of time on it.
Previously, it was believed that brown hyenas live in pairs or alone and the female herself brings up cubs who hide in dens and dense thickets. However, in Central Kalahari, a collective den was discovered - the brown hyena clan, consisting of five adult females, three adult males (one of them dominated), as well as young males and cubs of different ages. All adult members of the clan fed offspring together.
Females dragged puppies into this collective den after they grew up, and gave birth and at first kept in another. Thus, it turned out that in favorable conditions a brown hyena can form small clans, and social organization depends on the living conditions and the number of animals.
The brown hyena is replaced by a stronger spotted hyena from some territories. This species is still preserved in arid areas. In their habitats, brown hyenas try to avoid encounters with lions, but sometimes they manage to take prey from cheetahs and even leopards.
