Talk:Hyena

Unbiased?

The article makes no mention of the hyenas social hierarchy, instead making them out to be evil demons and hermaphrodites. There is no counter action against this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.131.58.220 (talk) 22:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

species clarification

There are four species in the hyena family (hyaenidae) ( [[1]] ). This generic "hyena" article speaks mostly about Spotted Hyena and much, if not all, of the information is not pertinent to the other three species. Specific to the spotted are the ranking system, the strength of the jaws, diet, mating, 'laughing' vocalization, androngeny of females, etc. Therefore I would suggest NOT including this page in the 2006 CD unless major editing done to make it generic to all hyenas OR specific to spotted. What does anyone think? Should content specific to the spotted_hyena be moved to that article and this article made generic to the family hyenas?

Billspat 17:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

So I took it upon myself to combine the "spotted hyena" and "hyena" entries into one cohesive article on the spotted hyena, containing all the pertinent information found in both articles. This article has been placed under "spotted hyena".

That seems to have been a nessecary step, but I am uncertain what to do with the current "hyena" article. As it stands, most of the information here applies only to the spotted hyena, and as such, much of this article is repeated under "spotted hyena". This article will need a major overhaul to apply to the hyena family in general; something I do not currently have time for. Coding "hyena" to go to "spotted hyena", with a brand new article on the family Hyaenidae could also be an option.

NihilRat 21:54, 10 February 2007 -

jaw strength

Under Physiology it says "The hyena has one of the strongest jaws in the animal kingdom" but Digestion says "they are the most powerful of the Animal Kingdom" I'm changing the latter, since there are a few animals with stonger bite force than the hyena.In hindi, Hyena is also known as "Lakadbaggha".

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This article now claims that the Aardwolf has a stronger jaw than the Hyena but the Aardwolf page claims it's weak jaw as one reason it doesn't hunt anything larger than the occasional small bird or rodent. Looks like we need a correction somewhere. -- 74.13.58.176 23:42, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

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You say "Spotted Hyena" twice. Do you mean the Striped Hyena is weaker than the Spotted Hyena? I assumed this to be the case and changed it. Please correct me if I am wrong! hhhobbit (talk) 19:01, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

You are correct; the striped hyena is, indeed, weaker than the spotted hyena. Anaxial (talk) 08:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

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They have some damn strong jaws! I heard about this on the discover channel last night.GIVE YOUR MAMA SOME SUGAR! (talk) 01:25, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

misc

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Do you know where I can get some information on the ice-age cave hyena?

what is up with the hyena comedy club?

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How do you add a category? I would have put this under Physiology:

I just don't understand this sentence:

One indication of hyena intelligence is that they will move their kills closer to each other so they can play dirty games with each other to protect them from scavengers; another indication is their strategic hunting methods.[2]

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laugh

I suggest adding something about the 'laugh' of the hyena - perhaps its most well-known trait. There is some information from the external links. BillMcGonigle 16:30, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

There's info about the laugh in the Spotted Hyena article. Is it specific to that species? --Kalthare 21:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

dominance

I find this passage confusing:

Females are the most powerful and dominating members of the Clan, then come cubs, and at last males.

Are these cubs here the female cubs or only, or do the male cubs dominate the adult males (until they become docile at puberty or something)? I suggest (depending on the facts) rewriting as either:

Adult females are the most powerful and dominating members of the Clan, then come female cubs, and at last males.

or:

Adult females are the most powerful and dominating members of the Clan, then come cubs of both sexes, and at last adult males.

The second version (which has male cubs dominating adult males) has extra clarifiction ("of both sexes") because of this backwardness.

--Toby Bartels 23:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

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There is still much scientists don't know about the dominance within the hyena clan. It is extremely complicated and is still studied carefully. Cubs of the Alpha (be they male or female) can taunt any other hyena in the clan, and I know for a fact that cubs gang up to tease a male. We might be careful adding information about the ranking system, since it still is studied.

I find it hard to believe that any cub would dominate a male if the mother wasn't around. You may as well leave cubs out of the equation. The females are dominant, and therefore their interests (including in their cubs) take precedence over the interests of the males.

unless you've studied them I don't think you personal thoughts on the matter can really be considered fact

accidentally killing siblings

The article currently states:

Hyenas are born with teeth, which means that sometimes when the cubs play-fight they can accidentally kill each other.

I know precisely nothing about hyenas (except that I'm glad they don't live around here!), so I'm not going to go ahead and change anything, but according to a National Geographic Channel documentary playing right now, called, I believe, "Eternal Enemies: Lions and Hyenas", when siblings kill each other it's intentional fratricide in their constant struggle for dominance, not accidental mishap. Comments? Tomer^talk 08:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I also just saw a Discovery documentary about most agressive predators or something such, featuring hyenas among others. I got the impression the cubs were pretty agressive. Apparently the female hyenas produce a lot of testosterone (hence their dominant attitude and agressiveness) - this also has the curious side effect of the females having false penises(!). -- 14 April 2006

After googling a bit, it seems like cubs indeed kill each other ( http://blindftp.exis.net/~spook/hyenatxt.html ) - I'm adding that page to external links. -- 14 April 2006

I came across an intressting factual piece of infomation about the hyena the other day. 80% of first born cubs are born dead, due to the strange makup of the female hyena's body. I'll see if I can reference something written for you... - 20th April 2006

Female Hyena's and giving birth

Female Hyena's have an unusually high mortality rate associated with giving birth this is due to their strange false "male genitials" which they give birth through. This results in a high death rate in the Adult Female's giving birth and also in firstborn cubs. 80% of firstborn cubs are born dead

http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SUA06/hyena.html http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Crocuta_crocuta.html http://blindftp.exis.net/~spook/hyenatxt.html http://www.africanconservation.org/dcforum/DCForumID5/347.html

A few references which explain it better than I can. Somebody want to add a bit?

Removed link

I removed this external link since it was dead. I saved it here for reference:

• The hyena man of Harar-
  

Regards, --Dna-Dennis ^{talk - contribs} 06:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Digestion & Smelling Abilities

Since I am quite fascinated by hyenas, I read quite a bit about them some years ago. After reading this article I failed to find info about the following (which I have heard about):

1. That they have superior digestion - they eat their ENTIRE prey (even the bones) - I managed to double-check this, and found confirmation of this here:
http://www.zoo.org/educate/fact_sheets/savana/hyena.htm
I have added some info on this under the new section "Digestion".

2. That they have EXCEPTIONAL smelling abilities - I can't remember the details, but it was something like 4 or 10 times (or more?) better than the best dog. I have even seen a documentary about some Asian dog breeders who claimed to have successfully crossed hyenas (or hyena-like dogs? I can't remember...) with dogs into a new dog breed, with amazing smell abilities. I find this strange, since I also have read they are more related to cats than dogs, and that they can not be crossed with either. In the documentary they showed the new dog breed and demonstrated the smelling capabilities. Maybe my memory fails me, but at least I remember it had something to do with hyenas and some Asian species... I will try to find more info on this, but if I fail, and someone else can confirm/clarify it, please say so here and/or add it to the article.

Regards, --Dna-Dennis ^{talk - contribs} 05:00, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Hyena-dog hybrid? Sounds like bs. Can't be done. I don't doubt that it's been claimed, but it was a lie.67.170.176.203 16:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Is the disambiguation with the Lion King characters really necessary? It seems doubtful that someone would go to "hyena" to look for particular cartoon characters. 68.77.111.101 15:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

But someone may be looking for Hyaena (album). I don;t know how to do those spiffy "You may be looking for..." links, though. 70.56.173.52 00:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Fighting not sourced

The description of lion/hyena battling is absolutely fascinating—almost seems like organized warfare. Which gets me wondering: would two predator species really waste so many calories on each other with the regularity suggested here?

So where is the source? Marskell 11:02, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a child has made up the fighting section. Ridiculous.

Much of it closely resembles the information in the National Geographic video Eternal Enemies: Lions & Hyenas. It's a gripping documentary, but I found myself wondering the same things as Marskell as I watched. Unfortunately, I don't know enough to be able to say whether or not the information is reliable, but it's possible that this might do for a source.

As to the style of the article section, I entirely agree: it lacks polish. I'd go ahead and edit it so that it reads better, but I hate to do that if the information isn't even factual. National Geographic seems to me to be a fairly reliable source, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any other sources that dispute the claims of Eternal Enemies: Lions & Hyenas. —CKA3KA (Skazka) 01:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

origins and evolution

A section on the origin and evolution of the family would be good. Let's hear it for Ictitherium, Percocruta and Hyaena brevirostris! (they're the only ones I know about...) Totnesmartin 21:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hyneas in Culture

The entire pop culture section needed to rewritten. It wasn't at all written in an encyclopedic way. Plus it's neutrality was questionable. I've trimmed out the offending language and regorganized it so it's easier to read.

Still, the language in MOST of this article is in pretty dire need of being cleaned up. -- ScreenWriterJeb

I agree with the need to clean this section. Most of the pop references contain no particular value. If something like "The Lion King" was seen by many, has important characters which were portrayed in a certain way, fine. If the sound of a hynea was used in some experimental music, big deal. Also what, praytell, is the significance of

 In India, Hyena is also called "Lakarbaggha" in Hindi, the local language.

?? Great. And in France they call a bear "un ours." Presumably, someone was trying to give the name in some language for hyena that also equates to trickster, but it's not clear how meaningful that is; particularly when only half the statement is there.--Belg4mit 22:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Hyneas figure prominently in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode "The Pack".

Quite frankly the bulk of this entire section is unnecessary and embarrassing, yet somebody seems intent on constantly placing this pop culture garbage back into the article. Oh, Wikipedia.

I've just tagged it for clean-up, which is at least a start. The text sections don't violate WP:TRIV guidelines, but the lengthy lists of indiscriminate facts certainly seem to, in my opinion. Anaxial 19:32, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Hyenas and lions

Ive seen lots of sources about hyenas and lionesses fighting over food and all, but a lion is much more massive. For what Ive seen so far, hyenas just run away when a lion comes, there is no such thing as a war. But are hyenas capable of killing with "male" lions? Or at least holding them at bay? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.32.234 (talk) 20:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

GQ article

There was this article in GQ from a couple of years ago about a group of roaming street people or something in Southern Africa that had sedated pet hyenas they showed around for money, has anyone seen this article? Arthurian Legend 01:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It does not say.

It does not say how hyenas and the Aardwolf are related to civets, I just want to inform people how they are more related to civets than they are to dogs, though I don't exactly know how they are more related so I can't exactly say how they are, so can anyone edit how they are, I just want more people who read about this to believe it. The Winged Yoshi —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Winged Yoshi (talk • contribs) 20:40, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Jaw

"hyenas have among the strongest jaws in the animal kingdom"

How do they compare against marsupials like the Thylacine and Tasmanian devil. I was udner teh impression their jaws were the strongest in the animal kingdom. Maybe that is ratio to size (or the hyena measurement is)--ZayZayEM 14:05, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Physiology?

The section titled 'Physiology' does not appear to contain any information about physiology as such, so I've changed the title to something more apropos. Anaxial 20:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

How are Hyenas not dogs?

How are Hyenas not dogs? The Winged Yoshi —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Winged Yoshi (talk • contribs) 17:57, 29 December 2007 (UTC) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4 da froobs1 (talk • contribs) 22:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC) because in thier evolutionary tree it was tilited more tword the cats side that a dogs side................