Hello Wildlife Friends,
Not my best image but I promised to show you more hyena behaviour... This was captured in the Kruger Park in October last year, one late afternoon at about 17:20 pm.
As you can see every member of the clan participates in this ritual of greeting, including the little ones. At times some aggression is displayed but that is only to establish who is the "boss", no one really gets hurt.
One cannot easily identify the sex of spotted hyenas but IMO there are only females present at this scene. I am no expert on the species but have a special interest in hyenas and have learnt quite a bit over time. So my assumption is based on their behaviour and not physical appearance.
A spotted hyena clan usually consists of related females and their young. It is a matriarchal society in which the males ( if they are around) are subordinate to females, which is said to be an adaptation to inhibit male aggression towards pups. Unlike other species, in the hyena the dominance factor is taken a step further, in that the female genitalia looks like that of a male. The testosterone level is often higher in females, which are are also bigger than the males. With animals that have the capability of killing one clan member with a bite, it is important to have some sort of appeasement gestures to inhibit potential aggressive behaviour. This is why, when hyenas greet, they sniff each other's genital areas to avoid the more dangerous side of the body where the teeth are:) At the same time, they show trust by lifting one limb and exposing their vulnerable undersides.
For those of you who do not know, the power of a spotted hyena bite is the most powerful all all mammals for its size - a whooping 800kg per square cm:2eyes2: Which BTW enables them to crush a very thick bone with relative ease in order to get to that nutritious marrow:S3: Amazing species!!!
Techs as follows:
Nikon D5
Nikon 500 F4
ISO 3200
F6.3
1/1600s
Hope I did not bore you with my long introduction, just thought its was important for you to understand what is going on at the scene. Many thanks for viewing as well as for your kind comments on my previous image, always appreciated.
Kind regards,


