Spotted
Hyena
Crocuta crocuta
Food, Hunting, and Predation
Prey:
Hyenas are both scavengers and hunters feeding on carcasses,
killed or scavenged, and utilize every part of the body including bone. They
will even pursue young, weak, diseased, injured, or dead prey (Applegate
1999). Hyenas are clearly carnivores and will eat just about anything.
Some of their most common prey include wildebeest, gazelle, zebra, rhinocerous,
and other ungulates (Postanowicz
2003).
Image courtesy of Professional
Pest Control
Hunting:
Hunting occurs either alone or in packs led by their female leader
(Postanowicz
2003).
For specific prey, zebra for example, clan members will purposely hunt together
to ensure success. The problem with this strategy is that whenever two or three
hyenas feed on a carcass, competition and squabbling is inevitable, attracting
other pack members as well as other competitors such as lions to the prey (Estes
2004). If there is competion amidst hyenas, females most always win because
they bigger and more aggressive. Hunting is usually done at night though they
do occasionally hunt during the day (Postanowicz
2003).
They hunt down their prey at speeds of up to 60 km/hr and kill their prey by
disembowelling them (Mitchell 2002). When around carcasses, in fights, and attacking
prey, they scream, giggle, whoop, laugh, growl and snarl explaining why they
are known as the "laughing hyena" (Mitchell 2002). Usually, females
leave the kill site and eat away from the kill. They have even been known to
cache food underwater. One hyena can eat up to 14.5 kg. per meal and digest
bones, horns, hooves and even teeth within twenty-four hours (Postanowicz
2003).
Predation:
The hyena's biggest predator is the lion. Lions and Spotted Hyenas are often
engaged in a power struggle. The male lion will even occasionally go out of
their way to kill clan matriarchs since hyenas are major predators of lion cubs
(Butchart and Roche 2003). Curiously, Lions and hyenas will put up boundaries
against each other as they would against members of their same species and threaten
each other at the borders with snarls, roars, urine, and paste (Postanowicz
2003).
Lioncrusher's Domain support this unique rivalry between lions and hyenas but
further propose that lions steal more hyena kills than the reverse. Randall
L. Eaton did a study in 1979 on the relationship between the spotted hyena and
several of their competitors including the lion, leopard, cheetah, and wild
dog. He found that between equal size groups, lions win more than 95% of the
encounters and initiated about 70% of them. Groups of hyenas can win against
a single lion, especially if the lion is female. The majority of competitive
interactions are for food, and aggression is more prevalet than predation. Another
thing that makes the relationship between lions and hyenas so interesting is
that lions rarely eat the hyenas they attack and kill. There seems to be no
apparent benefit of lions attacking and killing hyenas. As for the spoted hyena's
other competitors, the hyena, especially if in groups, is rarely dominated and
can successfully steal their food. An interesting fact about hyenas in regard
to humans: in many African societies, because of its ghostly whooping call and
nocturnal ways the hyena is regarded as a witch or an evil spirit (Butchart
and Roche 2003).
This
web site was created by Keeley Roles for an undergraduate class, Animal
Behavior, at Davidson College Spring Semester 2004. Email keroles@davidson.edu
with questions regarding this web page.
Home
• Physical Characteristics •
Female Dominance • Food,
Predation, and Hunting • Social Spacing
• Social Organization •
Mating System • Offspring
• References
