There are some new residents at the Bronx Zoo: spotted hyenas! I had never seen a live spotted hyena before, and I was quite surprised to find them in what had previously been the cheetah enclosure near the giraffe house. For more on spotted hyenas, see Sci's excellent post on hyena mating or my short essay on the "predatory intelligence" of hyenas in the online journal Antennae (p. 23-25).
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I've been waiting for this day all month. My article "Predatory Intelligence," which considers the beauty and ugliness of spotted hyenas, is now available for free in the journal Antennae. For some reason it is not listed in the table of contents, but it is in there, sure enough. Just scroll down…
tags: London England, London Zoo, sciblog, zoological gardens, travel
Entrance, London Zoo.
Image: GrrlScientist, 2 September 2008 [larger view].
After a leisurely morning walk through part of London's Regents Park, Bob O'Hara and I then spent the rest of the day at the London Zoo.
The London…
An African wild dog (Lycaon pictus, left) compared to a spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta, right). Both photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
It never fails. Whenever I visit a zoo's African wild dog exhibit someone inevitably asks "Are those hyenas?", and when I visit spotted hyena enclosures I often…
African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) don't have it easy. Their taste for large mammalian prey puts them in competition with lions and spotted hyenas for both prey and living space, meaning that wild dogs regularly have their kills…
I find it intriguing that the evolution of pack behavior in hyenas (in turn causing the development of shearing carnassial teeth that allowed them to move from scavengers to live hunters) may in turn have influenced the ancestors of lions into first forming prides in order to defend their own kills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI8G3UefIkU
Additionally, supported by some of the content in the Neurotopia hyena mating blog you referenced above, it would seem that female hyenas have it all: matriarchal power, voting rights when it comes to sexual partners, and the prestige of having bigger genitalia! (I am sure exploring the evolution of the mammalian "bigger is better" paradigm would make an interesting doctoral dissertation!)
I saw live spotted hyenas this past summer! Beautiful animals, in their own way.
Aww, he's so fluffy and cute! While I'll miss the cheetahs, I'm excited that there's such a nice hyena exhibit now. Do you know how many are in the enclosure?
There's a small pack of spotted hyena at the Night Safari in Singapore, but they're usually just lying around and sleeping. One time though, I was eating a hotdog and one of them turned to look straight at me with great interest. I felt very vulnerable indeed. And when one of them started whooping while out of view, I truly began to understand just how scary life could have been for a puny little hominid on the savanna.
David; Yes, the co-evolution of large predators is very interesting. I am always in awe of how many different kinds of large predators were present in the prehistoric past (including different forms of hyenas) than are present today.
Erin; I only saw two, a male and a female. It would be good to see more, but it is a relatively small enclosure. I just wonder where the cheetahs went.