Hyenas give birth through their clitoris and other facts

The Lion King is one of my favourite Disney films EVAR. Possibly even my favourite, depending on whether I’m in more of an animal mood or a feminist mood (in the case of the latter, Mulan wins). Anyway, one of the reasons that the Lion King is so awesome, besides the amazing songs and the bit that everybody cries at, is these guys:

Shenzi, Banzai and Ed: Spotted hyenas

The hyenas! I just don’t think hyenas are featured enough in animated films. How else are we to know about their interesting anatomy, their unusual social structure and their high levels of social cognition?! I guess that leaves it down to losers like me to bring you this information, then. Because I think hyenas are a lot more interesting and intelligent than we give them credit for.

Hyenas are awesome. If you don’t believe me, I hope that you will once you read this post. There are three species of hyena in Africa: The spotted hyena, the striped hyena, and the brown hyena. Of these, the spotted hyena is the most common, and the ones that the Lion King trio were based on. I will mostly be referring to the spotted hyena throughout this post.

Brown hyena

So what are hyenas? Are they from the feline family, or the canines? Are they more cat or dog? Neither, actually. The hyenas are a family of their own, the Hyaenidae. Interestingly though, hyenas are actually more closely related to the mongoose (a biological family called Herpestidae) than to the cat or dog.  When you think of hyenas, you may automatically think of wily scavengers, waiting on a brave lion to make a kill then steal the scraps to feed themselves. This is not true: Hyenas hunt and kill about 90-95% of their food. Of course, they scavenge when the opportunity arises, but most carnivores do this and hyenas certainly hunt and kill their own prey more than they scavenge.

Striped hyena

Another interesting fact about hyenas is that the females are the dominant sex. This is fairly unusual in mammals. The females are bigger and stronger than the males and the hyena matriarchal social structure is fiercely strict: So much so that even an ickle baby female hyena is is automatically dominant over every adult male in the clan.

Female spotted hyenas also sport very, very long clitorises. The clitoris is so large (about 7 inches from the body!) that it is almost indistinguishable from a male penis. They also give birth through this clitoris, and so it may come as no surprise to learn that giving birth is extremely risky: Pushing a two-pound cub out of that tight squeeze means the female is prone to potentially lethal injuries. First-time mothers are particularly vulnerable to complications during childbirth: It is not unusual for them to die during the process.

Spotted hyena clitoris. You didn't see that in the Lion King, did you?

Spotted hyenas are incredibly intelligent. Their social intelligence is particularly striking. They even outperform chimpanzees on problem-solving tasks which measure group cooperation. In fact, in this particular task which involves two hyenas working together to pull ropes in order to get food, is carried out by spotted hyenas with up to 100% accuracy after a training trial. It seems that spotted hyenas are hard-wired experts at social cooperation. Not quite the laughing scavengers people often think about. Speaking of that laugh, it’s something I haven’t even mentioned yet but this video shows the typical noise quite nicely.

It’s not entirely understood what function this crazy vocalisation has, but it’s been suggested that the pitch of the “laugh” may communicate something about the spotted hyena’s social status. It’s also been suggested that the laugh could actually be a sign of frustration.

Summary:

1. Hyenas are not scavengers: They’re cool, clever, highly social animals
2. They live in clans which are ruled by the females
3. The females have HUGE clitorises
4. They make a funny laughing sound, but we’re not sure why.
5. I don’t yet have the Lion King on DVD (only VHS) so if anyone wants to buy me a copy, feel free.

We are not evil.

Recent news stories have spurred a lot of people to say things liiiiike:

“Humans can be evil creatures. No other animal kills for no reason other than survival”.

And I am getting preeeetty sick of it. We are not an evil species. And we are not the only species that kill for apparently random reasons.

Firstly let’s tackle this notion of evil. This is a tricky area of philosophy that I do not claim to be in any way an expert in but here is my interpretation of the subject: I do not believe in “evil”. I cannot define it. People act according to what they believe to be right at that time. I am not in any way saying that terrorist attacks are acceptable, or that murder in any circumstance or situation is excusable. I am saying that we cannot look at a behaviour, like the killing of a human by another human, and just explain it away as being an “evil” act.

By saying something is “evil”, it is like we are saying “that’s just the way it is. We can’t do anything about it. You can’t change an evil person”. The way society would thus tackle such a person or group would be to try to eliminate them, either by locking them away out of sight, killing them, etc. Would these acts be seen as evil? Not by the people carrying out the task. Because to them, what they are doing is “good”. We are going around in circles here. People are always going to have opposing perceptions and ideas of what is good and bad, right and wrong. Labelling what we do not agree with as “evil” and what we do agree with as “good”, we achieve nothing. We must try to understand perceptions of people other than our own. Not accept them, but understand them. The beliefs of others may be just as strong as our own, and they may well believe our ideas and intentions to be “evil”. But without understanding the opposition, we end up victimising, creating in-groups and out-groups, and ultimately carrying out then excusing “evil” acts. Hey, it’s not “evil” if it’s in the name of the law, right?

Now on to part two of my rant. Humans are most certainly not the only species that kill their own group members for reasons other than basic survival. I have to be careful with what I go on to write about here, because I do not want to sound like I am demonising other animals. As I said, I do not believe in evil. I believe that individuals will do what they believe to be right at the time. In other species, we cannot really say they do what they believe to be “right”, as we do not know if animals other than us have a moral sense of right and wrong.  Neither do I aim to use animal behaviour as a model to justify human behaviour. All I am trying to point out is that animals do engage in behaviours that will ultimately benefit them at the time.

Take chimpanzees. They are known for being a territorial, aggressive bunch. They also quite regularly kill infants. Here’s the shit you don’t see on National Geographic. Our closest primate relatives mindlessly killing (and often eating) children of their own species?! WTF? That’s shocking! Evil! It’s enough to drive one to creationism.

Let’s take a closer look. Infanticide is mostly carried out by males. Why? Here’s an interesting point: Males are highly unlikely to kill their own offspring. Also interesting: They are just as unlikely to kill the offspring of their brother or another close relative. This makes sense: Why destroy an infant that is carrying a significant amount of your own genes?

Another point: When a female chimpanzee has a baby, she will not be able to have another one for three to five years. Imagine you are a young male chimp who is currently in the position of alpha male. You are probably only going to be in this position (and therefore have full access to all the ladies) for perhaps a year or two. All the females have infants. This causes you problems: You are not going to be able to father any children during your time of dominance, because there are no fertile females to mate with. What’s the solution? Kill some infants, the females in the group will stop nursing, she will become fertile again, and you can attempt to successfully mate with her. Huzzah: You have passed on your genes while you can.

(Note: Infanticide by females is also becoming more well documented, but is more complicated to explain here: For more information click here)

Infanticide is also common in various monkeys, rodents, lions and birds.

There are many more examples of such acts  in animals that we may interpret as evil but, when you break it down and look at them from a completely different perspective (e.g. the perspective of the male chimp who may only have one chance to pass on his genes), the behaviour is difficult to describe as “evil”. It’s just different.

Again, I am not using this post to excuse the behaviour of people. A human killing another human is not right. But we have to be consistant in this view in order for society to function. I am not comfortable with it being acceptable for one group to kill and it be celebrated, and for another group to kill and to be condemned.

Take two points from this ramble.

1. Think about what “evil” is before you describle something or someone as it.
2. We are not a bad or “evil” species. Can you imagine a city like London if the humans were replaced with big cats or gorillas?! On the whole, we are a relatively peaceful species. And sometimes we should give ourselves more credit.