The Socioecology of the Spotted Hyena

The Socioecology of the Spotted Hyena

Click here to review Basic Information on the Spotted Hyena

Click here to view the assessment of Social Hierarchies and Feeding Behavior of the Spotted Hyena

Click here to look at the Reproductive Behavior/Infant Behavior of the Spotted Hyena

This website was completed by Sean Burkein partial fulfillment of the requirements for Biology 323,

(Animal Behavior) at Davidson College. Spring Semester 2002.

To go back to the Animal Behavior website at Davidson College, click on the link.

To go back to the main page for biology at Davidson College, click on the link.

A spotted hyena has killed a young wildebeest here and is strong enough to carry the animal with its jaws. This photo was taken from <http://www.leopard.net/~alari/hyenas/pics/hyena-03.jpg> and permission is currently being sought to keep this image on my website.

Below here are listed some websites that provide some good information

on the spotted hyena. These are the websites that, in my opinion, present information that

most closely parallels that information presented in the primary literature. Please note, however,

that website material does not undergo the same peer review as does information presented in the

primary literature. It is for this reason that all website information should be verified against

information as it appears in the primary literature. As an example, it should be noted that some

websites claim that female spotted hyenas only mate with transient males. Nowhere has such a

finding been presented in the primary literature. It is much more common for female hyenas to mate

with the alpha male in the clan than for females to mate with a transient, non-resident male.

www.lioncrusher.com/hyaenidae/spottedhyena.htm

www.rsl.psw.fs.fed.us/projects/wild/zabel/zabel2.PDF

sailfish.exis.net/~spook/hyenatxt.html

socrates.berkeley.edu/~behavior/hyena.htm (masculinization of female genitalia)