As dusk begins cloaking the Maasai Mara grasslands of southwestern Kenya, a spotted hyena slinks beneath the woody umbrella that is the acacia tree.
Plants & Animals
Sep 16, 2022
0
35
Of the hundred or so known species of hyena—living and extinct—that stalked the earth, all have been meat eaters or omnivores except one, the aardwolf, which, mysteriously, eats termites.
Paleontology & Fossils
May 6, 2022
0
67
Hyenas are frequently vilified and often feared. Hemingway once described the hyena as a stinking, foul devourer of the dead, with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves.
Plants & Animals
Sep 27, 2021
0
31
Best known for its presence in house cats and a tendency to infect and alter the behaviors of rodents and humans, the parasite Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is also associated with bold behavior among wild hyena cubs and ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 23, 2021
0
354
New research into the evolutionary history and prehistoric migrations of hyenas reveals surprising similarities between hyenas and prehistoric humans. The results from the University of Copenhagen and University of Potsdam ...
Archaeology
Mar 13, 2020
3
1249
Like all spotted hyena newborns, she spills onto the Kenyan grassland with open eyes and a full set of teeth. But as the daughter of a high-ranking mother in a matriarchal society, she also inherits an advantage over many ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 9, 2020
0
97
Modern hyenas are known as hunters and scavengers in Asian and African ecosystems such as the savanna.
Archaeology
Jun 18, 2019
0
629
When it comes to advancing social status, it's not what you know, it's who you know—for humans and spotted hyenas alike.
Ecology
Mar 11, 2019
0
94
A few hundred thousand years ago during Earth's most recent ice age, a beefy subspecies of spotted hyena that was more than double the weight of its modern relative roamed Eurasia's snow-glazed terrain. Until their extinction ...
Analytical Chemistry
Nov 14, 2018
0
156
Submitting to mob mentality is always a risky endeavor, for humans or hyenas. A new Michigan State University study focusing on the latter, though, shows that when it comes to battling for food, mobbing can be beneficial.
Plants & Animals
Nov 8, 2016
0
152
