Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta): Facts, Clans and Diet

What does a spotted hyena look like?

A spotted hyena has a heavy, almost bear-like build, with a broad head, thick neck and front legs that are longer than its hind legs, so the back slopes down toward the rump. Its ears are rounded, unlike the pointed ears of the striped and brown hyenas, and it has only a short, bristly mane.

The coarse coat is sandy, yellowish or grayish with dark brown to black spots. The spots are darkest in young animals and fade with age, and every hyena’s pattern is different, so researchers use spots to recognize individuals. The tail is short, about 30–36 cm (12–14 in), and ends in a bushy black tip.

The skull and teeth are built for crushing. Massive jaw muscles anchor on a tall crest on top of the skull, and the broad premolars work like hammers on bone. For its size the spotted hyena has one of the strongest bites of any mammal, strong enough to break the leg bones of zebras and wildebeest.

How big is a spotted hyena?

Spotted hyenas are the size of a large dog but much more heavily built. Unusually for a mammal, females are larger than males, by around 10 percent on average.

Size varies across Africa: hyenas in southern Africa, such as Zambia, average heavier than those in East Africa, and a few individuals weighing 80–90 kg (176–198 lb) have been recorded. The Ice Age cave hyenas of Europe were larger still.

Habitat and range

Spotted hyenas live across sub-Saharan Africa, from the Sahel south to South Africa. They are most common in open savanna and grassland, such as Tanzania’s Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, which hold some of the densest populations known. They also live in dry woodland, semi-desert including the Namib and Kalahari, and mountains up to about 4,000 m (13,000 ft) in Ethiopia.

They avoid the dense rainforest of West and Central Africa and have disappeared from much of South Africa outside parks. In true deserts the smaller brown and striped hyenas are usually more common.

Clan territories range from under 40 square kilometers (15 sq mi) in the prey-rich Ngorongoro Crater to more than 1,000 square kilometers (390 sq mi) in the Kalahari, where prey is scattered.

What do spotted hyenas eat?

The spotted hyena is a carnivore and, contrary to its reputation, mainly a hunter. Studies in East Africa found that hyenas kill most of their own food, often well over half and in some areas more than 90 percent, and scavenge the rest. The details are explained in Do hyenas hunt or scavenge?

Their main prey is medium-sized hoofed mammals: blue wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, impalas, springbok and gemsbok, depending on the region. Groups can bring down larger animals such as young buffalo and occasionally adult eland. Alone, a hyena takes hares, birds, reptiles and even fish and insects.

Hyenas usually hunt by chasing. They run through a herd to spot a weak or slow individual, then pursue it over several kilometers at up to about 60 km/h (37 mph). A large heart, close to 1 percent of body weight, gives them great stamina.

Nothing goes to waste. A spotted hyena can eat around 14 kg (31 lb) of meat in one meal, and it swallows skin and bone, which strong stomach acid dissolves. Its droppings turn white when they dry because they are full of calcium from digested bone.

Clan life and behavior

Spotted hyenas live in clans that range from a handful of animals in poor habitats to 80 or more in rich savanna. Members share a territory and a communal den but often spread out to forage alone or in small groups, coming together at large kills, at the den and to defend borders. This “fission-fusion” society is closer to that of chimpanzees than of wolves.

Clans are strict hierarchies run by females. Every adult female and her cubs outrank the adult males that joined from other clans, and a cub inherits a rank just below its mother’s. Males usually leave their birth clan at about 2–6 years old. The reasons and the unusual biology behind this system are covered in Why are female hyenas dominant?

Hyenas mark their territory with “pasting”, smearing a strong-smelling, creamy secretion from glands under the tail onto grass stems, and with latrines near borders. Clan members greet each other by sniffing and licking each other’s genitals, a ritual that reinforces bonds and rank.

Whoops, giggles and other calls

The spotted hyena is one of Africa’s noisiest animals. Its best-known call is the long, rising “whoop”, repeated in bouts, which can be heard several kilometers away and lets each hyena announce its identity and location. Clan members recognize one another’s whoops.

The famous “laugh” is a high-pitched giggle given during conflict, especially when a hyena is chased away from food or attacked by a dominant clan member. Research has shown that giggles carry information about the caller’s age and social status. More on these sounds in Why do hyenas laugh?

Reproduction, cubs and lifespan

Spotted hyenas breed at any time of year. Pregnancy lasts about 110 days, and a litter usually holds two cubs, occasionally one or three. Mothers give birth in an old aardvark or warthog burrow and later move the cubs to the clan’s communal den.

Cubs are unusual among carnivores. They are born with their eyes open, weighing about 1–1.6 kg (2.2–3.5 lb), with fully erupted front teeth. Same-sex twins often fight from the first hours of life, and in some litters the weaker cub dies.

Hyena milk is extremely rich in protein and fat, and cubs nurse for 12–16 months or longer, one of the longest nursing periods of any carnivore. Mothers do not carry food back to the den, so the cubs depend on milk until they can follow adults to kills. Young hyenas become mature at about 2–3 years.

Wild spotted hyenas often live around 10–12 years, and some females in long-term studies have reached about 20. In captivity they can live up to about 25 years. Many cubs die young from starvation, sibling fights, lions or attacks by other hyenas.

Predators and threats

Adult hyenas have one main natural enemy: the lion. Lions and hyenas compete for the same prey, steal each other’s kills and frequently fight, and in some parks lions cause a large share of hyena deaths. Lions kill hyenas but rarely eat them.

The greater threat today comes from people. Hyenas are poisoned, snared and shot, often in retaliation for livestock losses, and their habitat is shrinking as farms and settlements spread. Body parts are also used in traditional medicine in some regions.

Conservation status

The spotted hyena is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessed in 2015), thanks to its wide range and adaptability. That assessment estimated a total population of roughly 27,000–47,000 animals. Numbers are stable in many large protected areas such as the Serengeti and Kruger, but are declining outside them, and the species has vanished from parts of West Africa.

Myths and facts about hyenas

Myth: hyenas are cowardly scavengers. Field studies since the 1960s, especially by the Dutch biologist Hans Kruuk in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, showed that spotted hyenas are efficient hunters. In Ngorongoro, lions scavenged from hyenas more often than the reverse.

Myth: hyenas are dogs. Hyenas only look dog-like. They belong to the cat-like branch of carnivores, alongside cats and mongooses.

Myth: hyenas change sex. Ancient and medieval writers believed hyenas were hermaphrodites, probably because females have an enlarged, male-like clitoris. They are not: each hyena is male or female for life.

Myth: a laughing hyena is happy. The giggle is a sign of stress or submission, not amusement.

Hyenas and people

Spotted hyenas have lived alongside humans for a very long time. Ice Age cave hyenas appear in cave art in France, and their dens full of gnawed bones have been excavated in Europe, including Kirkdale Cave in Yorkshire, England, studied in the 1820s.

In many African cultures hyenas are linked to witchcraft or seen as greedy and ugly, and films such as The Lion King (1994) spread a villainous image worldwide. Elsewhere attitudes are kinder: in the Ethiopian city of Harar, wild hyenas have entered the town at night for generations, and they help clean up waste.

Hyenas generally avoid people, but they can be dangerous. Rare attacks, usually at night on people sleeping in the open, are recorded mostly in parts of eastern and southern Africa. On safari, stay in your vehicle near hyenas, never approach or feed them, and in an emergency seek medical help immediately.