Ologies with Alie Ward - Hyaenidology (HYENAS) with Christine Wilkinson

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

Giggles. Pseudopenises. Matriarchies? Media slander. Hyaenidologist Dr. Christine Wilkinson delivers stories about the nature of matrilinearity, hot Lion King gossip, bristle backs, tiny heads, big teeth, animation errors, human-hyena interactions, tongue bumps, termite poisons, lawsuits, and why these animals have been robbed of respect and denied the devotion the so deserve. Ready yourself for stories from this delightful carnivore ecologist, hyena researcher, PBS science communicator, National Geographic Explorer, and curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. And raise a glass to your new favorite undercats.  Visit Dr. Wilkinson’s website and follow ther on Instagram, Bluesky, and TikTok A donation went to Black Mammalogists Week and El Elna Elak More episode sources and links Other episodes you may enjoy: Carnivore Ecology (LIONS, TIGERS, & BEARS), Mammalogy (MAMMALS), Cynology (DOGS), Felinology (CATS), Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME), Condorology (CONDORS & VULTURES), FIELD TRIP: Birds of Prey and Raptor Facts. Gelotology (LAUGHTER), Neuroendocrinology (SEX & GENDER), Phallology (PENISES) 400+ Ologies episodes sorted by topic Smologies (short, classroom-safe) episodes Sponsors of Ologies Transcripts and bleeped episodes Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes! Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake Chaffee Managing Director: Susan Hale Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth Transcripts by Aveline Malek  Website by Kelly R. Dwyer Theme song by Nick Thorburn Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Oh, hey, it's the guy in overalls and no shirt, Allie Ward, and I'm glad you're here every minute of this episode as a gift. So I asked around to some past ologies guests. I was like, who are you excited about in science right now? And within like five minutes, I got two texts telling me that I needed to meet this specific ologist, like ASAP, a conservation scientist, a carnivore ecologist, an urban ecologist. They work in L.A. They got their bachelor's at Cornell, a PhD at UC Berkeley. They're now an assistant curator of community science at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. They're the co-chair also of the hyena specialist group. They're also a National Geographic Explorer. They're also a PBS science communicator and a co-founder

of the beloved Black mammologist week. I mozied over to the museum as fast as I could and I was like, please let me talk to you. So in this episode, we're going to chat about everything from hyenas and the media, what they're eating. Are they matriarchal? We're going to talk about hormones. Why the ladies have a penis, pretty much, so much more. But first, let's thank the patrons of the show for supporting us from beginning for as little as a dollar a month via patreon.com slash ologies and for submitting so many great questions every week. Thank you to everyone out there wearing ologies merch from ologiesmerch. Thanks to everyone spreading the word about our spin-off show, which is smologies. Those are shorter classroom, safe episodes of ologies. They're in their very own podcast feed.

They're linked in the show notes, S-M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S, Smologies. Also, thanks to everyone who leaves reviews for the show. They help us so much. I read them all, and I prove it with a recent one like this one from Lizelle 23. And Lizelle wrote, this show is like browsing the old blockbuster video stores and not knowing if I'm going to like the video, but surprise, I always like the episodes. Lizell 23, thank you for that. I like you.

And I like sponsors of the show who make it possible to donate to a cause of the Chieologist choosing every week. All right. Okay, let's get into it. Hyena, it's an ancient Greek word for pig. It's in the feminine form. So it's the study of animals that are called lady swine, even though they are not. So sit tight. Let's talk about the lion king. Pseudopinuses. Dining with lions, tongue bumps, termite poisons, lawsuits, bristlebacks, tiny heads, big teeth, animation errors, bumping around through the bush on a tiny Jeep thing, sniffing out, human hyena interactions, cats versus dogs, and why these animals have been robbed of respect and denied the devotion they so deserve with researcher, carnivore ecologist, and hyenaidologist, Dr. Christine Wilkinson.

My name is Christine Wilkinson, and I use she pronouns. I called you Dr. Wilkinson when I walked up and you'd jump scared. Yes, technically that's my name as well. A woman of many names. I was going to chat with you about coyotes or hyenas. You're good at both of them. And that was one of the harder decisions I've had to make in the history of ologies. Which do I talk to you about?

So we're going hyenas. How often do you get to meet a hyena expert? Exactly. Yeah. They're underserved. And a canid? They are a phalliform. What the, already?

What the felliform? I know already. I'm like, I'm out of my depth. Shall I go into it? Yes. Please do. They are in phalliformia, which is the cat suborder. So they are more closely related to cats than to dogs.

Dogs are in canaformia. I know. What? So hyena day, which is the hyena family, is closely related to things like mongooses, et cetera, civets, et cetera. What? So they are, they may look like a dog, a bear,

something completely undefinable, but they are phalliforms. A chupacabra at times. It's interesting because they don't look like a cat at all, but they definitely look like a dog that you're like, what kind of dog is that? And you just can't figure it out. Okay, how big is a hyena? And I'm sure they range based on species, right? Yes, they do. So there are four species living in hyena day, although there have been up to maybe 100 throughout time. So there are four species. There's the spotted hyena, which most people know about. There's the striped hyena. There's the brown hyena, and there's the Ardwolf,

which is the wild card of the four. All the same genus or no? They're all in the same family, hyena day. Well, actually now they're all four in different genei as well. Genoises. Really? They're each in their own genus? But the striped in the brown used to be in the same genus,

hyena, which is really original. H-Y-A-E-N-A. So the striped is hyena-hina-hina. The brown is actually para-haina-Bernaeia. I used to be hyena-brenia. The spotted is Crocuda-Kracuda. And I know. They make it really easy for a hyena-hina.

And then the Ardwolf is Pretellus Christata, and it's the one that is very much the least related to the other three. What do you think happened to the other 96 in time? Because they seem like they would absolutely destroy. Like they seem like they'd kick ass forever. I know, right. So hyenas began to evolve in the jungles of the Miocene Eurasia. So the Miocene was 23 to 5.3 million years ago.

And early, early, Afro-Arabia smashed into Eurasia. And a lot of things in that time were arboreal because they were a lot of trees around in the jungles. But these animals were not. They started to evolve kind of getting bigger and bigger, becoming more and more. able to do things like long distance running, and there were fewer trees, there were more open spaces, more grasslands, more shrublands. And so we had a split where they started out sort of the ancient lineage of hyenas that are closer to the art wolf that are not like these big, massive jawed bone crushing hyenas that you see in spotted, striped and brown. And then these bone

crushing hyenas started to evolve like 14 or so, maybe a little bit longer, a million years ago. because they were competing with canids for sort of that niche of running around to get your prey and running in these groups to get prey. And so they needed to evolve a way to get more from the prey to be able to actually eat the bone marrow, crush the bones, and be able to use them. So bone crushing, is that a term that scientists use or is that just like a descriptor that's more casual? Because a bone crusher doesn't go harder than that.

It's a scientific term. Is it really? Yeah. So like this group of hyenas that includes the three that I mentioned. So these are the striped hyena, the brown hyena, and the spotted hyena. Are in the bone crushing lineage. That's so, that is such an undersung term. Yeah.

The fact that we don't just call them bone crushers is a huge disservice to the brand. Yeah. Although the brand, I must say, maybe wouldn't medif it from more attention to the bone crushing ability. You mentioned that they haven't always been very popular. Yes. Have we seen going from way back to now, have human beings been like, I don't think so, not in my backyard, kind of and tried to kill them off? I do know that they probably did prey on humans at some points from some of the cave data they have.

But these days, there are a lot of different cultural views on hyenas. Disney did not do spotted hyenas any favors. I was going to ask about that. When you knock it off? Well, he started it. Look at you guys. No wonder we're dangling at the bottom of the food chain. Man, I hate dangling.

Yeah? Yeah, like I would argue probably fueled actual persecution of hyenas, but persecution was already happening and continues to happen. In some places, hyenas are associated with witchcraft. I should say, just to give you the laydown, spotted hyenas, apex predators also do a lot of scavenging. Okay. But they actually compete with lions,

contrary to what the Lion King really showed you. And in some places, the lions are the ones stealing their kills, not the other way around. No. Yes. So they're bone crushing, but they're also hunters, and they have a whole bunch of interesting social dynamics. The striped hyena is a bone crusher that occasionally hunts,

like very small prey. The largest would be like the baby of a animal. ungulate, but they usually scavenge. And then the brown hyena usually scavenges, with the exception of they do kill seal pups on the Namibian coast, skeleton coast. There's seal pups over there? Yeah. It's like a desert with a ocean. Yeah, it's very strange. Just trotting off to the beach, nab in a pup, and then heading back. Into the desert. It's weird. Wow, that sounds like a mishmash of AI that doesn't know what it's talking about. But it's real. Yeah. Yeah. So, those are, you know, they bone crush. And then Ardwolves actually only eat termites for the most part.

They only eat. So is that, are they Ard varks and Ardwolves? Is Ard meaning termite? That is such a good question. Wait, I feel like I knew the answer. I think the answer is no. But why Ard? Why Ard? I don't know. There's got to be some good etymology in there. I'll look it up. Yeah. This is where an aside will go, because Ardvark and Ardwold. Hey, here we are. So in Afrikaans, this is a language derived from Dutch colonizers, Ardvark means earth pig, and Ard Wolf means earth wolf. So they're little dirt doggies, but really closer to soil kitties, really.

And these brush-colored, tiger-striped little cuties, they have a long ass neck. Looks absolutely bonkers. They got a tiny little head with bald-looking snout and a tongue that is poking. doted with these raised bumps and do not, don't look up a fuzzy four-pound giant-eared ard-wolf cub unless you are in a safe spot to wail about never getting to cuddle one. I'm not going to recover from looking at a picture of them. So they're only eating termite. So they're just having to get, I imagine a lot of biomass to sustain a dog-like creature, right?

Yeah. They, I think your adult ardulew can eat like 300,000 termites a night. How are the termites dealing with that? They don't eat termites inside of the mounds. Okay. They eat them just like the ones that are outside or on it. And they have a sticky tongue that they lap it up with. Some people used to think that they ate carcasses or that kind of thing.

But actually, it's been shown they're eating the insects off of the carcass. Yeah. So mostly that, I think there's only ever been one case that's been documented of an ardwolf killing a goose. And I don't really understand how it did that or how it ate it because it doesn't have the right teeth for it. What kind of teeth does it have? Just little like nubs.

I mean, it has its canines and stuff for like display and stuff like that and fighting. But like it doesn't need teeth. It just like swallows the termites. It's wild to me that some of them are bone crushers and others have nubbins to eat like worms. You know what I'm a little wormy creature. It's just pap in them like rice crispies. Exactly. I looked up the goose incident, and yeah, you can get deep into the paper, a novel record of ardwolf feeding behavior, which alleges that an ardwolf killed two captive geese at a South African wildlife preserve at 0,700 hours on the 10th of June, 2012.

And like an urban legend made to scare teenagers, the paper details that the weather was clear and bright, and that the previous evening coincided with the first frost of the winter. the ard wolf was able to gain access via the gap between the gate and the fence and a worker saw with her own eyes that the ard wolf had quote already killed and partially eaten one adult goose and had the head of a second in its mouth appearing to be suffocating it however i want to note that compared to this single indictment on paper we have way more eyewitness reports of the 2016 clowns sightings. I motioned for Ardwolf exoneration. Not enough evidence and only one witness testimony. Come on. So what about their size and like body shape? Do they range among the four? Like are some of them like a Pomeranian and some are like a Malamute? Yes, especially the bone crushers versus the Ardwell. So the Ardulf is pretty small, little spindly guy. It's like 20 something pounds or maybe a little bit more, like something quite small. Not a large dog.

size, maybe a medium dog. Very spindly, doesn't need a lot of power in that jaw, right? So it doesn't have the robust musculature and stuff and everything that you need on your skull for that. They get bigger looking when they are threatened by something. They'll, like, raise their mane on the back and look all cute and fluffy. Is it kind of spiky? Is it really thick guard hairs that can bristle? Yeah, yeah, they kind of bristle.

And actually, I have only ever touched spotted hyenas, but I can tell you that like a spotted hyena has much coarser hair than a lion or a coyote or a bobcat or something like that. Ooh. Any idea why? No, this was literally a question I was asked the other day and I was like, I have no effing clue, actually. I'm like, I wonder if anyone studied that and I doubt it because like people don't study hyenas as much as they should. Are there a lot of hyena scientists? Are there a couple of you? There are more than you think. Okay. But fewer than there should be. We have, so like dedicated hyena research. researchers, gosh, I think I could probably not tell you more than 15.

Oh, that's so nuts. Maybe 20. That's so cool. Yeah. You could fit that in a small bus. You could fit it in an Ardwolf's tummy. You could put it in an Ardwolf's tummy. Okay, so size-wise, Ard-wolves are the littlest.

So they have guard hairs, they got nub and teeth, they're lapping up bugs. Eating bugs. They have five toes on their front paws, and I'm not really. sure why, except that they're more primitive, like from the more primitive lineage, and they didn't get rid of the other toes. They look really similar to striped hyenas, except they're a lot smaller and spindlier. They're easy to tell part. So striped tina is like almost the same as an ardwolf, just bigger, slightly lighter in color, much more robust school, getting up to like 120 pounds. Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah, like there's a range there. Maybe 100 pounds.

That's no joke. Okay. So an ard wolf, remember, those are the bug eaters. They're about the size and kind of shape of a whip it, whereas the three species of bone crushers, the striped, the spotted, and the brown hyenas, those are in size like a German shepherd up to a Bernice mountain dog, but they have a spiky ridge of fur along their back. They are not something that would sleep in your bed. Brown hyenas around the same. Both brown and striped have like these long sort of fur on their backs. Brown is really long and shaggy. Brown is really long and shaggy. brown hyenas. You'll never guess this, but it's brown. Oh, whoa, really? The striped one is striped. Okay. And the spotted is, well, it's spotted. I'm going to just jot that down because I'm

going to forget. Very creative ways to tell them part. What's with the back crest? Like, why do they look like havelinas? Why do some of them have like a shoulder breast, you know? Well, I know for the artful, they extend that main to, like, look bigger when they feel threatened. Okay. I would put money on striped hyenas doing that to some extent, but I've never seen it, and I don't know the answer. How is a lot of the information gathered? Is it mostly camera traps? How typically these days do people study or count them? So the camera traps are the most reliable. Doing things like point counts really aren't necessarily that reliable, especially for like a spotted hyena where these animals could be really cryptic. So what people used to do, and to some extent they'll do is like call-ins, four spotted hyenas, because they have all these calls you can use, which is also how we capture them when we put GPS collars on them.

What kind of calls? Would you like me to do the most common one you'll hear? Yes. The most common one is called the whoop because it sounds like whoop. So it's like this. That's got to freak people out if you've never heard that. Yeah, so at night, that's what you hear. It's a long-distance call.

It's the thing where they're kind of like, I'm here, are you here? Or like, you'll hear it around if there's something that they're going to try to do together or like something that's being hunted maybe. And it's what you hear all night. It's very comforting to me, honestly. It sounds beautiful. And the babies, sometimes they can't whoop properly. So it'll be like this.

Like a voice crack. Yeah. Just like a 13-year-old boy in a choir. Exactly. It's very sweet. So you can call them in. The nice thing about spotted instructions. striped, and I'm sure for Ardwolf too, but I'm not, I don't really know, is that they each have an

individual pattern, like a fingerprint. Really? That you can tell them apart. From their fur? Yeah, the spots or the stripes. Some programs, like the spotted hyena program in the Masaymara in Kenya, have been studying hyenas and their spot patterns and their social ranks and all sorts of other things about them for like over 30 years.

And so, like, those research associates, they learn all the spot patterns and they just be like, oh, that's so and so and so and so. just like such a niche wonderful skill set. Yeah, to be able to recognize a hyena from a pattern at a distance. Yeah. It's like a second nature. But have you ever gotten to go out and do field research? Yeah.

What does that like? So I work a lot on spotted hyenas and also spotted hyenas in relation to people and how we're interacting with each other. So I use a couple of different methods from my research on the hyenas. One is GPS collars to look at their movement at really fine scales. One is camera trapping. I also do a lot of community participatory work to understand more about how people are interacting with these animals. And so what does it look like to study hyenas? It depends.

So I work in two protected areas, but one of them is also a livestock ranch that has like 6,000 head of cattle, sheep and goats as well as being a conservancy. Oh, wow. And it's right across the street from a fully protected, fenced, national. National Park. And so it's like a natural contrast. So there's hyenas in both, but they act very different from each other. How? Like the ones in the Conservancy used to be persecuted and also still get rightfully hazed away from the livestock. So they're very skittish of people. So the ones in the conservancy, which is on privately owned land, are more freaked out because they're used to getting yelled at for eating someone's goat. Whereas the ones in the park, you can observe for longer periods of

perpuscular time, so longer periods in the morning and evening, and not just at night because they're just chill and they haven't had that interaction with people. Oh, I also do observations. So, like, if I find a den, I know that they like to come to those dens in the morning and in the evening, and they tend to congregate more there. So I might spend time at a den from, like, right before dawn to, like, an hour after dawn. And that's especially possible at a place, like, in the National Park where they put their dens kind of anywhere in the open versus the ones in the conservancy that will tend to, but not always like hide their dens or put them in places where I really have to work hard to get to them in a very hilarious field experience is trying to do that.

How do you find them? I mean, how do you get to them? Are you in a some sort of ATV or? No, because I value my limbs. Yeah, I was going to say those things are death traps. Are you in a Land Rover situation? I wish I could afford a Land Rover. say those seem also huge. I've had a recent come up due to a bunch of donations where I've moved from my Suzuki samurai. Do you know those guys? I love a Suzuki samurai. They're so good for many things and so horrible for many things. Yeah, they tip a lot from what I understand. Yeah, I haven't tipped yet, but if I were able, if I were going to tip, I could probably lift it up, which is helpful. They're so little and cute. They're little, if they fall in a hole, you'll be in the hole,

which is a problem. But if like there's mud, it's light. enough for you to drive yourself out of it. Golf cart with doors. Yeah. Yeah. And I have very long arm so I can reach everything in my car when I'm in the samurai. So that's what I could afford in grad school. And now we got a bunch of donations and we just got the project, Toyota Highlux, like

for cedar truck, which will be helpful for lugging carcasses around and stuff. What kind of carcasses? Hyena carcasses? Like prey carcasses for catching hyenas or for doing this carcass study that we're doing. the last time we were trying to catch hyenas, we were taking collars off of them because I couldn't afford the collars of the job. I still can't. But I was gifted hundreds of pounds of rotting cow meat because the fridges went off at the

conservancy, which has livestock, just by happenstance. It was awesome. I normally don't have bait. And I got all this cow meat, but we were in my friends and colleagues Prado, which is an enclosed space, and that's where we stored it in the 110. degree heat for five days. And it was very dusty. So, like, often when we would drive around, we would close the windows. And it was like a, you know, glamorous field life that everyone thinks that I lead. I'm also, by the way, I don't eat meat. So. Oh. But carcasses, honestly, like,

the smell of a rotting carcass weirdly makes me hungry. No. How is that? Yeah. And I spend a lot of time at rotting carcasses, like watching behavior. Uh-huh. And I'm just like, I don't understand why I'm so hungry all of a sudden. I'll be in the waft of rot and I'll be like, I need to eat a snack while you guys are eating a snack. That is like a whole separate field of neuroscience. Like they need to put you in an MRI and pipe that in and figure out like what part of your brain. Because it seems like it would be disgusting and repulsive. But, you know, we have a really big rotting warehouse in L.A. right now, the fire. And I'm just thinking like there's so much I think I should go sit next to it. I was going to say like it's such a shame that that

that's not being trucked around in a high lux right now. I know. You know, they would love that. Yeah. And you mentioned that some of them, that they scavenge and they hunt, do they have just really good senses of smell where they can catch a whiff? Yeah, they've got excellent smell. They also have excellent senses of hearing.

They're able to also like run sort of long distances for a long time, which is why they have that shape, by the way. Really? Okay, because it's almost like their hips go down in the back, right? Like a German shepherd. Let's look at the stuffing. Dr. Wilkinson brandish, a small stuffed animal hyena is a demonstration tool. Oh, I love you of a stuffing.

They kind of look like those dogs with short spine syndrome. You know, like it absolutely, it goes up like a line graph from the butt to the head. So are the back legs just straight up shorter? Yes, they are. They're shorter than the front legs. And so all of that shape lets them be more efficient at, running long distances without running out of energy, basically. So it's like a toe strike instead of a heel strike.

Like they strike with their front paws and then they catch up with the back a little bit? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So like if you just compare them to something like a cheetah, that's like very lithe, very skinny, very symmetrical. They're built for short distance extreme bursts of speed, whereas these guys are more like endurance runners. Speaking of endurance, Dr. Wilkinson has been studying applied ecology. for nearly two decades, which is nearly two decades longer than I have known anything about a hyena. How did you get into it? If there's only a few dozen really in the world, how did you become

a hyenaologist, which is so cool? How did you fall into that niche? Yeah. Okay. So I actually grew up in New York City to spend my child in New York City, and I was really into all the animals that, like, were able to live alongside us. So like the rafts. which I call our puppies were like my favorite thing. I love rats. They're so cute and so large. And like I loved the cockroaches. I like the pigeons.

I still love pigeons. And I was always sort of pretending like I had my own show about urban scrappy animals. And so I think I always had a sort of a thing for like the common animal that takes what we throughout it and survives and or thrives anyway just to start with. But then how did I end up on high? I ended up studying abroad in Kenya and Tanzania in college in undergrad, partially because I loved and was obsessed with wildlife. And partially because as a half-black person, I was like, I would love to go somewhere where there and more black people and, like, learn more about whatever. Like,

I come from slave ancestry, so I didn't know where my people had come from. And then I did the DNA test later. And it was like everywhere. So anyway, I went to Kenya and Tanzania. Who knows if I'm from there. I don't know, and went there with this expectation of studying wildlife. And I was really shy person growing up too for most of my childhood. And that's like another thing I was like using wildlife as an escape, I think. And really like not super into people at all, which is like very funny listeners. I am the curator of community science. So anyway, when I first went to Kenya and Tanzania, it was just a couple of weeks in when I was hearing from people like,

listen, if a person kills a lion, the government will be here in two days to arrest that person. And if a lion kills a person, we may never see any acknowledgement or compensation. But that was what really tipped me off and was one of many catalysts that made me realize that, like, I really need to be thinking about people in our relationships with wildlife and about communities. So that really catalyzed me to wanting to work on this issue of human wildlife conflict and coexistence and step away from just like being a wildlife nerd. So that's what galvanized, like, my desire to do a PhD was more like an applied reason. And, like, PhD gives you enough time and often we'll pay you if you teach or something or if you get a fellowship. So you don't have to pay for yourself because I grew up pretty poor and didn't want to do a master's, which you have to pay for. Yeah. So I wanted to do the PhD in a way that would be helpful to communities as well, right? So we had a lot of anecdotal reports and, like, sort of social surveys that were like, hyenas are causing the most trouble.

but a lot of the money and a lot of the ecological surveys and like or studies were about lions and leopards and like sort of the big pretty kitties of the world and wolves and whatever. So I was kind of getting curious about hyenas. Like why is it that we haven't studied how they interact with people very much? Like really at all.

And hyenas like have absolutely, I think they're one of the most polarizing animals in the world almost equivalent but not quite to coyotes actually, which is why I studied coyotes as well. Love them. But people like really hate spotted hyenas, to some extent, striped. Like Brown isn't as volatile, but still not liked very much. And when you think about conflict of coexistence, you have to think about perceptions first. So that's kind of how I got into it. When you talk about causing trouble, capital C, capital T, when they're causing trouble, does that mean they're eating

someone's poodle? Does that mean they're taking out half a herd of cattle? Like their garbage cans are getting spilled over. What kind of trouble will be talking? Why are people so mad at them? People are mad at them for a lot of reasons. Okay, so people are mad at them for some justifiable reasons as well as some that are more sort of myths and misconceptions. Yeah. One, they like to eat livestock if they can manage. Like they are opportunistic hunters, scavengers, etc. They can hunt solo or in pairs or in a group, a big huge group. They can take down a huge prey, like even African Cape Buffalo. Oh my gosh. we can see, they can hunt and bring down prey far bigger than themselves by using the strategy

of the pack. First, they separate the mother buffalo and her calf from the herd. The Cape Buffalo is a large, aggressive animal, so the hyenas are taking a big risk. Yeah, like they can take them down. I mean, it's not easy, but a huge group can come and do that. Clans can be, you know, up to 80, sometimes even larger. that's like pushing it. But they can be relatively large

or they can be smaller. Right. So they can do damage. And if your livestock are not protected or spotted hayas are also very intelligent, they can outperform chimpanzes on some problem solving tests. Oh. Yes.

Which is the study that they did was at UC Berkeley, which is a whole other story. They had a hyena clan there. At UCBer. Oh. They had a hyena clan at UC Berkeley. At UC Berkeley? At UC Berkeley.

In the hills? Where? In the hills? Yeah. Like not just wandering around, but like at a facility. At a facility in the hills? Yeah, until 2013

for like a couple decades. No. Because back in the day, you could just like take hyena cubs out of Kenya. Now I can't even take a piece of poop out of Kenya without like a million miles of paperwork.

So I don't even try. It seems like there would be a lot of nimbies also about that being like a whole like a clan of hyenas. I used to live in the Bay Area. So I'm like, man, I never... I mean, it's a good question. Like I actually would love to look back

at like news articles and things about that. Yeah, no. Trust me, there's going to be some microfeetion. happen in an aside over here. That's nuts. Yeah. Let's just take a dip into the 2024 Berkeley Science Review article, hyenas in the hills, exploring Berkeley's unusual field station. So this is a 29 acre spot in the Northern California, Berkeley Hills, and about 20 spotted hyenas, which were imported from Kenya, lived there for roughly 30 years. For decades, a wealth of valuable data about bone chomping and laughter and endocrinology emerged.

But that wealth did run out and funding ceased in 2014. It forced the research to end. And then the hyenas had to be dispersed to various places, including Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida. They're like, I guess I'm going to retire in Florida. Now, speaking of Disney, yes, animators visited this research station to sketch and study the movements of hyenas. They promised scientists that these misunderstood little bit.

would be portrayed in a good light. And then when the movie came out and hyenas were foot soldiers for a genocide, the hyenaologists were like, wow, rat bastards, all of you. Why did you do that? So much so that one unnamed scientist related to the project tried to sue Disney for defamation. But hyenas are no match for the mouse. But the hyena community does agree that at least interests in hyenas has gotten a boost for decades. Who got the last laugh? Hyenas. Because the researchers

forgot to give a heads up to the animators that these captive UC Berkeley spotted hyenas had filed down canines. So the smiles

of the hyenas in the Lion King are inaccurate. In reality, the giggles are far more pointed. So maybe one or two of them

ended up at Oakland Zoo. They only live up to a couple decades in the wild and maybe like a bit longer in captivity. Oh, that's not pretty good. If they're lucky.

maybe 10 to 20 years in the wild. If it was. Okay, so they can take down water buffalo. They can take down maybe livestock. So yes, they can get into

the livestock enclosure. They will try. And they have also, you know, attacked humans sometimes. They were as a big thing in Nairobi, like outskirts of Nairobi

not too long ago where like some college students or something were walking home at night on the edge of Nairobi National Park and got attacked. Tuesday. The Kenya Wildlife Service clarified that two people, including the student, were attacked by Hainan.

The statement adds that its personnel responded quickly and managed to take the injured to Horsiptoll. KWS in the statement added that they discovered partial remains of a human being killed at the scene. The family of the deceased has been notified. The KWS has asked people living near the area to be vigilant as it was unfenced, and will corridor. It's how overseas. It's just sad, but still, like, we live with these wild apex predators sometimes. Yeah.

They can also, like, get into sort of nuisance trouble. Near where I work in Kenya, someone had a hyena show up and, like, totally destroy their little hut store. Oh. Yeah, and, like, get in there. Because they are journalists. They can eat everything from elephants to caterpillars. Oh, so if you've got some fruit in there, they're going to be like, yum, yum, yum.

They could. I've definitely, there was someone I knew who had a hyena coming and taking the maple syrup off the patio or something. And you blame it. And you blame it. So they could be nuisances. Yeah, and there could be serious issues with, like, them sometimes attacking kids. But, like, that's not their MO usually, but just like any behaviorally flexible animal, the individual's behavior can be different, individual by individual.

And so, like, you could end up with an animal that prefers to do this one behavior and then just keeps getting into trouble. Yeah. Just a little rascal. Yeah. When then, Lion King, I'll be honest with you. I've never seen it. You've never seen the Lion King? I've never seen the Lion King.

There is a whole lacuna. There is a whole empty spot of pop culture for me where I didn't have a TV for a little while because I was always on like, I always had a deadline, which is very stupid. Never seen the Lion King. And I know I'm missing out. I will see it before this goes up. I did see it. I watched it.

And yet, it was brutal emotionally. And my friends, Laurel and Catherine and your podmother Jarrett kept asking me for the first 40 minutes of the movie, you seriously haven't ever heard this song? You've never seen this movie. And I was like, I haven't. But now I have. Two things stood out to me, okay? The animators clearly modeled Scars Hyena Army after Hitler's. And I looked it up, yes, the 1935 German propaganda film, The Triumph of the Will, was inspo.

And it made me, I mean, this is an older movie, it made me feel really nostalgic for, you know, eras when our country promised to kill Nazis instead of, like, elect them. And also, side note, that imagery was eliminated in the 2019 live action version of the film because now the U.S. is anti-antifascism, which should frighten you a little bit more than a hyena attack. Also, number two, never trust a shady uncle who tells you to keep things a secret. Good messages. But I know that there are hyenas that are, CT, they're causing trouble, I think, in there.

There's scar is a bad guy, I think. Maybe the mean, it's like Hamlet, right? Scar, but he's a lion. He's a lion. I remember that. And then is the threat that because they make noises, people interpret is laughing, that they are talking shit on you?

Is that why people are threatened by? Hyenas? So, yeah, some of the misconceptions and myths. Well, so there's some cultural aspects where, like, people are associated them with witchcraft. Every now and then, a hyena will do some grave digging, which doesn't help their reputation very much. But, like, bones be bones. And they can digest them, and their poop is often pure white from the calcium and the bones they digest. Pretty metal.

So they're really, I can get into public health benefits later because they do help us. Oh, they also, their spotty genitalia really increases that witchcraft association and misconduct. and misconception about them that's just like, oh, that's too weird, I'm afraid of it. It also crushes bone, which doesn't help its cause. They're the worst. Let's kill them all. Do they laugh at people?

They don't laugh at people. But so spotted hyenas, they are highly social. They have a bunch of different behaviors, including a bunch of different vocalizations that they do that mean different things. The laugh actually is more of an anxiety indicator. Isn't it, though, sometimes for everyone? I'm going to go.

Right. Right. Exactly. And there's like some excitement there for sure. But like typically when you're hearing a lot of those laughs, it's the excitement, yes, of being around a kill. But it's a little bit more because they have these, every single hyena is in a particular rank socially. They have an individual social rank. But if I'm a lower ranking hyena eating a delicious cut of meat on a carcass and my higher ranking superior comes up to me to try and get that. meet, I will sort of bear my teeth nervously, flick my tail up over my back and something we call bristle tail, and then laugh like, sorry, I'm getting out of here. Yeah. Really? So you hear it in like moments of high energy and excitement that are usually around these big resource items. That's when you'll hear it the most. Oh my gosh. So it's more often like, oh, I don't know. I'm so sorry. I don't worry. Everything's fine. That's so, okay, that's a revelation. to me. And then what about those misconceptions in pop culture? Because you think about hyenas,

they're laughing at you, they're making a fool of you, they want to eat you. Again, Lion King. But do any pop cultural references get it right? Or is there one that's just the most egregious? Well, I mean, honestly, Disney has the only, no, I guess what's her face with that pet hyena, which like never have a pet hyena. Also, that one superhero that she's like off her off her head a little bit. Harley Quinn. Oh shit. Is that a hyena in a bathtub? I named him Bruce after that hunky one guy. He's my little dumb pink. Aren't you? I'm too little big. Bruce. He was wondering around Chinatown. I guess that Bruce theory the hyenas really do have nine lives. But anyway, that hyena was like a sidekick, which is cool.

But like anytime a hyena is a pet in a film, I'm like, oh no. Oh, dear. But Disney has the monopoly for the most part on hyena content in pop culture. And they really did the dirty in the Lion King, which the one thing they did get right was that there was a female leader. Okay. Because in most clans, at most points in time, all the females in the clan are ranked more highly than all the males for spoties. Because they have a matrilineal social structure, which means it passes for mama to cub. the youngest cub is the highest rank

and the male cubs eventually immigrate out and when you come into a new clan as a male you are automatically at the bottom of the totem pole. So there may be like temporary moments where there's a little male cub who's higher ranked but he's going to leave at some point and so most of the time females over males which is kind of awesome.

And it's the younger cubs that are higher rank? No. The youngest daughter of the highest ranking female in the clan is the highest ranking at the time. No. Yeah. Are you the younger? youngest in your family? Yeah, and it kind of holds true for me. Are you? Yep. Youngsts are the best.

Youngest kid and daughter, so. Nice. Same. No wonder I love hyenas. Okay, I have a million questions from listeners, and I've been waiting to get to the pseudo-penis, Dr. Wilkinson gestures to the stuffy in her hand. Yeah, this one is not accurate. Is that, is that supposed to, oh, there's no penis at all. They did a Barbie on it. Yeah. No Jenny's to speak of. No. Do you think that when designing this stuffed animal, they had to sit around a conference table and say, we got to give it some kind of looking dick.

What are we going to do? I feel like if this was like a bark box toy, they would do, they would actually give it the dick. But as it is, I think Wild Republic does not give anything genitalia. It's a disservice to the narrative, but we'll talk about it. Okay. And talk about it. We will in just a moment, but we're going to take a quick break to do. donate to a charity of choice. And this week we're doing a double donation, one to the beloved

Los Angeles County Natural History Museum to support specifically Black Momologists Week, which provides opportunities for current and aspiring black mammologists across the diaspora to form conscious, fruitful connections in addition to illuminating historical and present-day black contributions in the feel of homology. And they say, in our ideal future, young black people of all backgrounds will realize that they are not only welcome, but needed and vital to the future. of this field. Love Black Momologists Week, and this year they're holding an in-person event at the Natural History Museum in L.A. on October 16th. So go to Blackmomologists.com. You just see the link in the show notes for more details, including they also have a Black and Indigenous

Scholars in Memology Award, and the application for that is on their website too. And we're also donating to El-Elna Alak, which is providing essential aid to families across Gaza, including clean water, food, and basic hygiene supplies. They're supporting people in critical need with dignity and humanity. And you can find out more about L.L. Nalak, also at the link in our show notes. They say this is what solidarity looks like when the world turns its back. Thank you so much to Dr. Wilkinson for choosing those. And thank you to sponsors of the show for making our weekly donations possible. Okay, so let's get to your questions. Patrons. You two can join at patreon.com slash ologies. It's a dollar a month. You can submit questions ahead of time. We ask as many as we can. So many good ones in this one. Like 30 of you asked, such as Aaron Ryan and Ketra wanted to know Aaron from Vancouver. Hey, this is Aaron Ryan for Vancouver, Canada. You got to talk about the female pseudopinous situation. Ketra says, what the heck is up with hyena's sexual parts? It's so weird. Please explain.

So many people wanted to know. And it's matrilineal, which is wonderful. That's got to tie in with the junk. Yeah. So there are, should I tell you about the what or the why first? Talk about the what. Okay, let's start with the what. Yeah, paint a picture.

So spotted hyenas, and this is only true for spotted hyenas, not the other three species. The females have what has been historically called a pseudo phallus because the people who came up with that term were white men who were scared to say. Clitoris, which is what that is. Amazing. So they say what it's not in relation to males. Yeah. So the spotted hyena's clitoris is the same length and size as the male's penis.

Love. It gets erect and soft like a male's penis does. Love. And here's the kicker. They have sex, pee, and give birth through their clitoris. No. Yeah. No.

How are they having sex? Through it. Okay, so they have to make it soft and sort of retract it. Uh-huh. And then it's very awkward. The female has all the control, as you might imagine, when you're pushing a rope into another rope. Mm-hmm.

But it involves a lot of acrobatics, but it essentially is the same thing, except, like, instead of mounting the female in a way you might expect in a mammal, it's like sort of like a half-mount dig underneath kind of vibe, I guess. Male on the bottom? Male. Male on top. Male is mounting after a fashion, but definitely, like, has a little bit more acrobatics to do. Maybe it's good ad muscles, I don't know.

But, yeah, the female sort of retracts it all. Got to get a strong core. Yeah. You need a strong core for that. I'd like you to know a few more dinner party facts about specifically spotted hyena peni. First, female so-called pseudophalluses are thicker than the boys. They have a more rounded tip, and they also feature spotted hyenae. small spines on the head, making them feel like soft sandpaper, report researchers who have felt

the tip of a giant hyena clit. Now, getting a boner as a woman hyena, it's not a flex. In fact, according to the banger of a paper in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, titled, The Erect P penis is a flag of submission in female dominated society. Greetings in Serengeti spotted hyenas. Females will greet each other. They'll lift a hind leg for just a lady dick inspection, and those who stay soft are the dominant ones. It's like doing a math problem as a seventh grader. Just a hard one in front of the entire pack is a sign of submissive embarrassment, if I can project emotionally.

Now, sometimes if reacquaining two females may get into a bit of a tussle, and they'll bite each other's seven-inch dongs doing lasting reproductive harm. In case it had never crossed your mind or your crotch, human penises and clitorises come from the same tissue. It's called a genital tubercle. And it's influenced by hormones. So it kind of decides the trajectory. And we have a great two-part neuroendocrinology episode with Dr. Daniel Fowh that talks all about

that and gender and intersex anatomy and so many other wonderful things. We'll link in the show notes. But yeah, a clit is more than meets the eye. If you're a human being, you got a nubbin at the top of the wishbone and then bulbs that kind of grace your vulva like underground arms. Yeah, we do need a whole episode on that. We'll work on it, but for now. Okay, wait.

So in a human, the clit is kind of like a wishbone. Mm-hmm. Did this just form out around the vagina and urethra, like a tube sock, kind of? Yeah, so I think the spotted hyena is the only species to have its vagina fully enclosed and its clitoris. Oh, about that. Yeah, which is like, I can go on because if you think too hard about that, you're like, holy hell. Yeah. Right. In fact, having to exit a clitoris on your way out is not easy for either the cub or the mother.

I'm sure. Can it widen to accommodate? It has to. I mean, it's a stretchy skin, right? Because it, you know, it becomes engorge and all of that stuff, good stuff that stretchy skin does. But a few things happen because of needing to traverse a canal that's not quite meant for a cub. So there's, I forget the percentage of first time cubs that die, but like there's a chunk of them that's estimated, I think, around 60%. Do they have one at a time or do they have like six in a litter? They can have up to two. Okay. Unlike the other hyenas, they only have two nipples.

Oh. Pretty sure that the other ones have more nipples than that. Wow. So they're just rocking. Okay, so maybe twins, if that. Yeah. And it's not, I think it's not uncommon for one of them. killed the other at some point,

sybilicide. And then I think during the first time birth, there's like 20% estimated of first time moms could die in birth. Oh, dear. And the other thing that happens is like it's pretty much guaranteed that that clitoris is going to tear during the first ever birth. Yeah. Which is helpful

for telling them apart from the males later on. Oh, really? Because there's a pink scar that runs along the clitoris if you are a female who has given birth. Okay. How do the sizes impact rank? Not at all or somewhat? The sizes don't impact rank, but the females tend to be bigger than the males. Okay. But also, when you're higher ranked, you get better cuts of meat, and you have to take less risks and go less far to access those better cuts of meat.

Do they have any idea from the evolutionary biology standpoint or the ethology standpoint, why it is matriarchy? Well, I like to distinguish between matriarchy and matrilineal. Oh, okay. So matriarchy is when females are in power, and Dr. Wilkinson says that matriarchy in elephant society, say it refers to a single female leader, whereas matrilineal is a transfer of power from mothers to their offspring,

kind of like inherited wealth versus power. So you can be rich without being in politics. and you can be in politics without being rich. But there's elephants that are matriarchal and maybe also matrilineal cetaceans. Yeah, have a lot of like female girl power in them. Do you think that's why they get paired in with witchcraft? Do you think it's just straight up like femophobia? Honestly, I don't even think so because people didn't, people don't even understand that they're females necessarily when they see them.

Yeah. You got to get up really close. I imagine. There are ways to tell them apart, which I can... Really? Should I say the theories about why the clitoris exist? Or should I say the ways to tell the males and females apart? Oh.

Use your character. Tell me why. Tell me why the clit. Okay. We don't know, but there are theories. First is they use their cleris and also the penis erect as part of their greeting ceremonies. They talk to each other about social rank and all sorts of other communication. And like, they lift their legs and, like, sniff each other and stuff. stuff like that. There's an element of like maybe they evolved these partially as a way to defend against or be more formidable against males in a couple of ways. Like they control all of the sexual encounters. And then there's also like there's a, it could be a byproduct of females getting that

dominant advantage because there's tons and tons of androgens that the fetuses are exposed to in the womb, like way more than your average mammal is exposed to in the womb. And like, are they getting these long clitorises because of all the, They're exposed to in the womb, which are a factor of, like, the territoriality and aggression that the moms also all hyenas show, but the moms show as part of their social rank especially. The cubs are also, like they come out very formidable. Like they have some teeth already. Their eyes are open. They're ready to rock and roll, which is very unusual in the mammal.

Typically, they'll come out, like, eyes closed, helpless. So, like, the cubs are ready to go. Oh, and so, okay, big clit. it does it can they come what's up do they know if they're having orgasms with that i feel like we can't even we haven't even studied enough about hyena basic ecology yeah for us to get to the orgasm very little research in humans so yeah who knows i just wasn't sure if that's like i don't know i'll look i'll i'll see if there's anything on it but i'm going to guess that's probably a big question mark i would put money on it being a question mark but i i sure hope i'm wrong correct

I could find nothing on if a female spotted hyena experiences spasms of sexual pleasure. But a 2011 New York Times article, How Spotted Hyenas Mate, detailed some observations from the UC Berkeley Haina Commune and said that females don't mate with their hometown spotted hyenas. They prefer immigrants to the clan. They want a fresh bombshell in the villa. Also, because getting it on is so acrobatic and difficult, sexual coercion is, is impossible in hyena society, at least spotted hyenas. So let's talk a little bit about that. Let's set the scene. So this article explains that a female spotty will shove that ass in the air

and she'll put her head on the ground to signal, I'm not going to bite you if we fuck. And one observation at Berkeley details failed mount attempts. It says the male veered off at the last second as if he was simply overcome by nervousness. And it explains that even though the female's organ is flaccid during the copulation. Its only opening does point forward and downward. So the male must, quote, hop around behind the female while he squats behind her thrusting blindly upward and backward to achieve this intromission. And it notes it's actually very comical.

Also, spotted hyenas will go find a little far-off secluded place to do that dirty, and not because they're shy or they lack an... exhibitionist kink, but because after mating, they can be stuck together for minutes at a time, and they could get absolutely wrecked by a predator in that post-coital dicktangle. Sometimes the man hyena will spend that time grooming his lover's neck as if to say, hey, that was awkward, but it was really nice. In a 2020 paper in the Journal of Endocrinology titled, Spotted Hyenas in the Sexual Spectrum, Reproductive Endocrinology and Development,

notes that the study of the spotted hyena, quote, forces a re-evaluation of how we define masculine versus feminine sexual characteristics. And I like that. I feel like if conservatives found out about a funded research project, just hyena orgasm, like, we would be in big trouble in science. I mean, we already are, but... Maybe they could learn something from it. Okay, how to tell males and females apart. I was going to say, because I find this to be important, which, like, nobody else does.

So there are a few ways, and some of them are easier. than others, but all of them are hard. Okay. The female's erect clitoris actually has a more blunt end than the male's erect penis. Oh, okay. So if you're looking at the tips, then look for that. Oh, a little point? You need a point to get in.

The female, once she's given birth, has a pink scar on her clitoris, as I mentioned. Also, once she's given birth, her two little teats distend, and you can try to catch a glimpse of those. And that's pretty distinctive. Fun fact, while we're talking about telling them apart, some might ask, why can't you just tell them apart? Because the male has testicles. And the answer is the female has a pseudocrotum as well. Stop it.

Yeah. Are you kidding me? I kid you not. And in fact, I have had to teach. When we've had a hyena in hand, I taught my old vet when I first started doing this work, that we actually had a female who hadn't given birth because you squeeze the pseudoscrotum. and there's nothing in there. It's just a sack of flesh,

which could be tied to the angiogens I was talking about earlier, for instance, but we don't know. Just drag kings. Exactly. Love. They're amazing. Hyenidologists also look

for a little bulge in the abdomen that might hint at a dropped uterus, but it's hard to tell if it's just a tummy full of water buffalo meat in there. Like, everyone looks pregnant on Thanksgiving. Yeah, exactly. Okay, Tyler Banks,

first time question ask her, do they groom each other and do they play? Yes and yes. Well, Spotty's do, and I'm pretty sure the other ones do as well. Everybody grooms for sure. Okay. They are, as I'll remind you, fellow forms. So they have some cat-like traits. And play is a huge part of sociality. So I would put money on Brown hyenas also playing, maybe striped, but Spotties definitely play. I watch them play. It's very sweet. What do they do? They'll like roll around with each other or like snap at each other and do sort of violent-looking cute things. L. Pete wanted to know, hypothetically speaking, if a hyenae was sitting on my kitchen counter, would it be inclined to knock cups and salt shakers on the floor? It might be inclined to eat you.

Yeah, I was going to say. While it's crushing. That's what it'll knock the things on the floor. Rachel B., first time question asked her, wanted to know if they really eat shoes. So do they have dog-like or cat-like behaviors if you were? I mean, they have hyena-like behaviors. But do they tend to be more cat-like? No.

I've watched a hyena, a young hyena, squeeze through the tiniest toll on a fence that I'm sure a canon would not be able to get through. And I was like, oh, you just reminded me that you're a phylliform. Oh, my gosh. You just made yourself into liquid for a second. But I don't think that's common. Yeah, just quit.

I can't imagine a dog doing that. Han the B, Patty, and R. A. A. Vector, wanted to know about scent marking. And Han the B says, I once heard that hyenas marked territory by what sounded like taking part of their insides and turning it outside. our evictor said, my girlfriend just told me they can turn their buttholes inside out. Is that true? Why? Nature is so beautiful. Yes. Don't we all wish we could turn our buttholes inside out? Don't we? If only. You're like those someone sitting there. Sponsored to you by buttholes. Yeah. It would definitely be helpful in the movies when your friends are out getting popcorn and you need to save their seeds. Exactly. They do. They a avert. So they have a scent glands. I think all four hyena species have the scent glands. that they use to mark their territory.

They'll do this very dainty. I mean, they'll do it anywhere, but, like, I've seen spotties do, like, a very dainty little, like, let me just put this right here on this blade of grass and, like, invert their butt a bit and get that scent paste out. Woof. I was going to say something. Oh, about eating shoes, they do try to chew on my tire sometimes. If they can crush bones, they can crush a Suzuki samurai tire, right? Yeah, and so I have some evasive maneuvers that I try to do in those moments.

But it is very cute. It's usually the cubs that try to do it. little babies. Well, I don't know if they could digest them, but Hallie Ragusa, Caroline Baxter, Mark Rubin, Megan Ratcliffe, Cremdala Cremie, Brooke Klein, Louie H., Clara Punf, wanted to know. Louis H. said, do hyenas have particular microbes in their gut that let them digest all this stuff they eat, such as bones? Brick Cline wanted to know if you've seen them eat anything really weird. But yeah, how are they digesting all them bones? I mean, their tummies are super acidic. They also, like, again, they can crush the bones pretty well with their teeth. I think 1,100 PSI-ish for the spotted, which is, I think, the largest bite force of a terrestrial mammal. Not a mammal, because, like, think about an orca.

Probably a lot more PSI, I'd say. Oof. So they have acidic tummies. They also, like, their disease endpoints in a lot of cases as well. I think the military was trying to study that for a minute, try and, like, use it for evil. But they couldn't figure it out. But like they produce a lot of antibodies for things very quickly, even in their saliva. So they are like one of the only species known to routinely like be an end point for rabies, for instance.

Oh my God. So they're like, how can we inoculate ourselves against bio-warfare we inflict on other people? What do the hyenas do? Yeah. Was it that kind of stuff? Yeah, I think pretty much what. They were setting their blood for a minute. I don't trust it.

Yeah, it was weird. And then and then what? Yeah. To what end, really? In terms of the habitat, Megan Bacon, Nikki G. Marla JMLS and Bug in a Rugg wanted to know well Nikki G asked if elephant graveyards

make for adequate environments for hyenas but you mentioned their dens and knowing that they can be like 80 a clan can have 80 like where are they 11? Oh I should have made that clear first of all never been to an elephant graveyard elephants are extirpated from where I've worked the past decade I have seen elephants but

there were a graveyard would I think that that's a good place for hyena. I feel like they might want more food and shelter than a graveyard could provide. Okay. But I don't know. Hyenas are very adaptable and they can like live in cities. So that's sure. That's a great habitat for them because anywhere is, it seems. Heads up, elephant graveyards don't exist as far as scientists now. So make sure to ruin that for everyone you know because the world deserves the truth. Do they dig a burrow? So they can dig burrows out, but they also often will reuse old burrows from like. things like wart hogs and things like that.

Usually where I work in the savannas, you'll see whart hogs and hyenas in the same sort of habitat. And it's really annoying. I'll get back to the dens in a second. It's really annoying because this is a very niche fact, but a warthog is a rooter, right? They root through the, they put their little knees down and they root through the soil to get stuff.

And when they're, Their butts are in the air and their heads are close to the ground. It looks from a distance. Again, I wear glasses, almost equivalent to when a hyena is sitting down. Oh. Yeah. And I'm so I'm like, is that a hyena sitting down or a warthog's butt? It's a warthog's butt.

Got it. It's such a specific problem to have. Yeah, it's so specific. Anyway, so the dens, they don't all live in the den. The den is meant for cubs. So there's usually two, at least two dens at any given time. there's the natal den where the females who are going to give birth, go to give birth and have the little tiny yin beans, as I call them.

What do you call them all beans? Bees. And yens is hyenas. Eins beans. Oh, my God, adorable. I love them. And they'll stay there for a certain period of time and then move over to the familial din, which is the one that like kind of the communal din that everybody's kind of gathered at

at the morning and the evening and sometimes other times throughout the day or night. But the cubs hang out in there when everybody is off doing stuff. What's the capacity? What's the head count inside one of those familial dens? I mean, it depends. I've seen a den that's very small and I've seen dens that are intended for a clan of like 65 hyenas that like maybe will have anywhere between two and like nine cubs at a time, right? So it's super dependent. Like the dens can be different sizes. It's infuriating when you're looking for them without having any clue where they are. Sometimes I can sniff them out, which is kind of fun. hyenas have a very musky smell. I mean, sometimes they have a very rotting flesh smell, but like musky smell. Like I knew where a din was, sort of, but it was in a very dense forest.

And I drove my little Suzuki in there and like scratched it to pieces. And I sort of got out of the car, and I have a witness to this. So like, I'm not crazy. I got out of the car and I was like, where is it? Like it was so dense. And I started to smell.

I like sniffed them out. And I found it. There might even be a video of me finding the den by sniffing. Getting closer. Getting closer. On that note, I thought this was a great question. Rachel B., first-time question-asker, hypothetically speaking, smiley face, if a camper were on her period and a pack of hyenas came sniffing around the grounds,

what's the likelihood she'd get dragged away as a hyena snack delight? And Goblin Prince, Naomi, first-time question-asker, Empress of Smallwood, Addie Capello, Earl of Gramelequin, Leila likes bugs, and Jenna Congdon wanted to know, will they eat you? Jenna says, would they like scritches? Are they mean and scary as they're made out to be? Or are they nice little weirdos with bad VR? So can they sniff you out and perhaps devour your bones? Are they going to kill you? They can definitely kill you. But your average hyena is going to be like a little bit more wary of trying to get into a tent or something like that. Okay. To like actively come get you. Like they're

going to be more likely to raid your trash in the campground for your use tampons or whatever it is. Would that be delicious for them? Probably. Probably. Right? Yeah. I guess so. Why not?

My dog used to eat those. I mean, it's absolutely disgusting. Blood is blood as blood. Like, I guess like a sponge of barbecue sauce. Yeah. No. Oh. So yeah, but like, you know, I wouldn't sleep with your tent open in general, whether or not you're bleeding.

Because like there have been cases where they just like, we're like, oh, look an arm and like ripped it off and walked away. What? Because these people fell asleep with their first halves of their body. out of their tent looking at the stars or something like that. And just grabbed a limb and ran? Yeah, they're opportunistic. The answer to are they cute little misunderstood weirdos or are they dangerous is like, yes. The answer is yes.

Right. Like they're not out to get you, but they're an opportunistic apex predator. Yeah, and you're in their territory wandering around or in like a vinyl tent. Yeah, we need to build a culture of coexistence where like we do smart things. Well, okay, Valerie Bertha, Sedone, Addie Capello, Curtis Dog, Ariel Van Sant, Aaron Dewberry, Villeney, Grace Conroy, Quill Sloan, Leanne Utinger,

Pavica 34, Megan Ratcliffe, and Jacob Morvei. Wanted to know, in Jacob's words, my entire perspective on hyenas comes from the Lion King. Assuming they don't sound like Whoopi Goldberg, what does the movie get right and wrong? A lot of people want to know

how accurate are the hyenas in the Lion King. Are they mischievous? So they can be mischievous because they're very clever and very intelligent. The only accuracy, really, though, was that the females were leading them, the female hyena, that was good. Stay put. No. We wait for the signal from Scar.

There he is. Let's go. Hey, there he goes. There he goes. The rest of it is like there was a lot of implications about them being dirty scavengers with, like, their apex predators, and they do compete. Like, the movie was written by a lion, honestly. Clearly. Clearly.

They compete with lions. His uncle was a producer. Life's not fair, is it? You see, I, well, I shall never be king. And you shall never see the light of another day. And you. Yeah, exactly. Let's make it this way.

And they kill up to 70 or even more percent of their own prey. Lions in some settings have been more likely to steal hyena kills than the other way around. And the other thing about hyenas is like they help us. Like they help the ecosystem. They are an ecosystem cleaner. They can digest bone. They can clean it all up. There's been one study estimating from Ethiopia,

estimating what would happen if you removed hyenas from the landscape. And they basically estimated that like there would be a ton more disease for both livestock and people and a ton more money going into trying to mitigate that disease. Especially if they're an endpoint. What do they call? A disease endpoint for a lot of diseases that we know of so far. So, again, done dirty, right? Oh, let's cram in another from No Rab and first-time question asker Naomi.

From whoms do they watch their backs? Do they have predators? Who's eaten hyenas? Oh, I mean, lions and hyenas will fight, but the cubs can be eaten by all sorts of things, right? Like little beans, especially when they're the little tiny ones. People are the main threat for most, if not all four hyena species, like getting hit by cars, getting killed through poisoning, burning out the dens, etc. Yeah, just meanies.

Common Omelet for some question asker says, I have questions about Ardwolves. First off, why so cute? And how do they not mind having their tongues bitten by termites all day and night? Do they get nibbled by their prey? I think that termites have the ability to let out acid or something, like something very chemical about a termite. Okay.

That's involved in their defense. And the tongue of Ardwolves has evolved. evolved a defense mechanism against that defense. So I don't think they feel it or otherwise they'd be feeling it 300,000 times. I know you're not going to sleep until I tell you about the 1994 article in the Journal of Emology titled Tolerance of Ardwolves to Defense Secretions of Trinveratumis, which are termites. And it says that, yeah, termites are over 90% of the diet of Ardwolves in South Africa. And curious as to how they could even deal. Scientists collected, liquidized in oil and then added in different concentrations this termite slurry to the diets of captive

ardwolves, African civets, and bat-eared foxes, sort of like an episode of Top Chef, with each of them being a judge. And the judge's reactions were, the foxes refused to even eat the termite mixture. They were like, get it out of here. This is crappola. But civets were like, it's not my fave, but I eat it. And ard wolves tolerated the highest concentrations. They were like, Bravo give these nerds the prize. And the termite chef scientist concluded that the ancestors of Ardwolves and relatives of civets adapted to tolerate noxious chemicals and hence the defense secretions of these delicious termites. Maybe they love it though. You know, I just did a hot sauce episode. Some people love it. And that shit hurts. So who knows? Okay, last listener question,

Holland G. And Lili Lek's Bugs want to know. Lila or Lila, says, can I love them? And more importantly, can I help them? And Holland G wants to know, how are they doing conservation-wise? Okay. Can you love them? Yes, love them today. Permission granted. Done. Can you help them? Yes. There are a lot of ways you can help them. I would say there are ways to donate to organizations that are doing broader coexistence efforts. Sometimes they're focused on lions, but they still help hyenas when there's like not a lion being poisoned or something being poisoned that they want a lion to die from. You can continue to spread the word. I've been giving spotted hyena stuffies to children for the past decade to try and plant seeds of joy and love and care for the

animals and fight misconceptions about them. So what is the hardest part about studying them? Is it getting up in the middle of the night so you can be there by dawn? Is it field work? Yeah. Honestly, sometimes. So I work with. with people and spotted hyenas. So I work at night and during the day. So like that's a big difficulty. I get very tired. There's also some mornings where like I need to get up and go at like 3.30 or four. Oh God. So that's hard. But like sometimes there's like buffalo outside of my house and I can't do field work that morning because I'll die trying to get out. But honestly, the hardest part is like working with people who are struggling with hyenas or who hate them. Yeah. It's kind of the most rewarding part

and the most fun while being the hardest. But, like, I've had a lot of great success stories around it, too. We started calling ourselves, am I allowed to curse on this podcast? Of course. Okay, so we started calling my team in my Ph.D. I worked with two Kenyan master students, Christine and Gerald. And we were calling ourselves team Maffisi, which Mafisi means hyenas in Swahili. But it's become a little bit of a curse word as well.

Okay. That means like fuck boys, basically. And so, like, I knew that. I speak Swahili. I also knew about that term. And I knew that, like, how negative it was. And I was like, y'all, we're going to reclaim Mafisi. And so we started calling ourselves that.

And at first people would laugh when we meet, like, Rangers or whatever. And they'd be like, oh, you don't know what that means. And I'm like, I know exactly what it means. We're reclaiming it. And now people have come on board calling themselves team Mafisi. And when I get out of the Suzuki, there's a crowd of people there that are like, Team my feces! Oh, my God.

I was so surprised. Oh, that's so sweet. You're legend. Yeah, so people like, you know, I'm not saying like there's some sea change in how people are viewing hyenas, but there's like these little bits of just like using comedy and using connection and being authentic

that like maybe move the needle in these tiny ways. That's been really nice to see. And I'm still a shy guy in there somewhere. But like the muscle has been worked. enough that like feels less daunting and more like how do I connect authentically with people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're you're such a good voice for hyenas and in general for scrappy wild life. I know that's your website too, right? Scrappy naturalist. Scrappy. Scrappy naturalist. What is it that you love the most about about what you do out of everything, you know?

Gosh. I love how you never know what the next day. bring to you how you can always let people surprise you and the wildlife surprise you. I like how diverse my days are, like everything from working with people to putting a collar on a coyote or a hyena to doing a TV show or something. You know, like I'm writing a children's book that's about misunderstood animals, scrappy animals that will come out in spring 2020. Like I can do all of those things as part of my job at the museum, which is part of why I like museums. Yeah. There's so much science going on, but there also is so much public interaction. It's so funny that there are so few people in the world studying hyenas and now we like, now we're like friends with one. Now everyone who listens

to this is like, yeah, Dr. Wilkes. Hopefully there will be more and more and more. I love hyenas now. Good. I like thought they were cool, but now I love them. They're amazing. Yeah. You're the best. So ask learned people absurdist questions. because hyenas, they deserve to be known, and now we know them. You can know more about Dr. Christine Wilkinson via scrappy naturalist.com. And you can follow socials at the links in the show notes. We have many more links to research and videos up at alleyward.com slash ologies slash hyenaology. It's linked in the show notes as well. We are at ologies on Instagram, a blue sky.

I'm at Allie Ward at both. We have shorter kid-friendly episodes. They're available in their own feed, no swears, wherever you find podcasts. Just search Smologies as M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S, and subscribe there. We have Ologies merch available at Ologiesmerch.com. And to submit questions ahead of time, you can join the Patreon at patreon.com slash Ologies for as little as one hot dollar a month. Aaron Talbert, love her, adminzeology's podcast Facebook group. Aveline Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly Ardwyer does the website. Our scheduling producer is Noel Dilworth. Managing director is Susan Hale. Jake Chafee edits. Lead editor is Mercedes.

of Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn made the theme music, and if you stick around to the very end, you know, I may tell you a secret. This week, except for recently for a few weeks, I was really concerned. I was super worried. I have a 14-year-old daughter named Grammy. She is a dog, and I have been really worried that she has diabetes because she's older, and she smelled very sweet like sugar or like maple syrup. I was worried that maybe she was passing some glucose in her urine, all of her blood work came back fine. And the smell persisted. She still smelled like sugar. We thought maybe it was like a shrub that she was brushing up against on our walks. And then it went away, which is good. And then it came back months later. And I realized that the

smell was my banana boat lip balm. And she smelled like it because I kiss her head a lot. And when I wore the lip balm, there you go. She smelled delicious. mystery solved. My worries melted away like honey. My beloved beast is just fine. I propose that you propose a toast to hyenas, though, at your next party. Pick a fact, any fact to share. There's so many, but two hyenas. Bye-bye.