why the spotted hyena is my favorite

aithne:

Hyenas. Can we talk about hyenas for a little bit? Because spotted hyenas are my favorite. (At least, they’re my favorite African predator.) They are made of 50% badass, 50% No Fucks Given Whatsoever, and 50% sheer awesome.

Why? Let me tell you some of the ways in which hyenas appeal to my love of badass animals:

Family Hyaenidae, sometime in the beginning of their evolutionary breakoff from the rest of order Carnivora, looked at the current fashions in mammalian sexual dimorphism and build and decided, “Fuck that, Family Hyaenidae does what it wants.” Female spotted hyenas are bigger, meaner, better hunters, and all around run the hyena show.

They look like dogs, but their teeth and tongue are catlike, specialized for ripping open throats and grinding up bones.

Speaking of hunting, the spotted hyena specializes in running down prey, moving at speeds of up to 30 mph over a good distance. They scavenge as well, but they’re not entirely scavengers. In some regions, there are lion packs that actually live off of hyena kills almost exclusively.

They can digest bones. This is pretty much unique among carnivores.

They’re smart. How smart? They outperform chimpanzees on cooperative problem-solving tests. They plan hunts in advance. Their social structures are more primate-like than either canid or feline, and are hugely complex. They have big old brains, they do.

Female spotted hyenas in particular are super-badass. For a long time, it was believed that hyenas were hermaphrodites. They’re not—but female spotted hyenas have a clitoris that looks like a penis, called a pseudo-penis. They can invert it to mate (spotted hyena vaginas are inaccessible), erect it, and give birth through it.

I’ll let that sink in for a bit. Spotted hyenas give birth through their clitorises.

Social dominance begins at birth. Spotted hyenas generally give birth to twins, and from the moment they’re born it’s every cub for itself. 25% of spotted hyena cubs get outcompeted to death before they’re a month old.

They may not be cuddly, or pretty, but they are awesome.

Edit to add: Also? They feature prominently in the best Webcomic of all time, Digger.