How You Believed the Oldest Lie in Nature

This is not a dog and that is not a laugh. If you’re confused, you’ve fallen for the great hyena trap. Cursed by its own anatomy and victim of the typecast, hyenas have always been the joker to the Batman of big cats. But how did hyenas happen? How’d they evolve to that? How did the Serengeti get an uncanny killer false laugh track? Was everything you got wrong about them? Yes, including that.

 The ultimate predator profile for which no one asked. Hyenas aren’t dogs. If you take one thing from this video, please let it be that. But they aren’t cats either. That’s another thing people say. And if you give me 60 seconds, I’ll make sure you never make that mistake again. Okay, so here you can see hyenas and dogs are on the complete opposite sides of order Carnivora.

 They’re not even close to being related. Nature double dipping on the dog idea is just convergent evolution. Give enough animals the same test and eventually you’ll get close to the same answers. Best example, new world [music] and old world vultures are nowhere near related. It’s just that a concept of a flying garbage disposal was so nice, nature did them twice.

 So yeah, hyenas are on the cat side of Carnivora and suborder named Feliformia literally classifies them as cat-like predators. But saying hyenas are in the cat family is like saying walruses are in the dog family. They’re not the same. They’re not the same. They’re not the same, puppy. Hyenas aren’t in the cat family.

They are their own family and Hyaenidae’s closest relative is the Mongoose Mafia. The same way the dog half of Carnivora has Napoleon complex crash outs and the raised weasels of Mustelids, the cat half has mongooses like meerkats. And hyenas are essentially oppressive marathon running steroid meerkats.

 Take that meerkat fact, put it in your pocket and hold on to it. We will get back to that. But yeah, hyenas are not dogs. Told you. Not to mention, they’re more meerkat than real cat. And if you were today years old when you realized hyenas are nothing canine, well, that’s just part of the personal bias you didn’t know you had.

 Not only am I going to correct all the ways your childhood lied about hyenas, I’m going to make you like hyenas by the end of this video. And if you don’t, feel free to unsubscribe. But first, let’s talk about how hyenas got here, cuz that lore is just as important. Hyenas started as these small, non-imposing imitation civets that would have also climbed.

 They would have been like the cat version of raccoons. Eventually, nature would revoke their tree-climbing privileges, but in return make them bigger and tankier. Then they went through an evolutionary divorce where the hyenas diverge between the even more dog-like hyenas and the famous bone-crushing hyenas.

 The dog hyenas didn’t fare too well. They got their evolutionary chain snatched by actual canines. The only dog-like hyena left is the aardwolf. The bone crushers fared a lot better because their bite gave them access to food no one else had, as they were the only mammals that could chew through solid bone.

 Whether it was a zebra’s lower jaw or a rhinoceros’s kneecap, these scavengers on steroids could find calories in anything, even other animals’ teeth. [music] The bone crushers would diverge into the striped and brown hyena. But millions of years before, a different version already diverged, one that was so strong they realized, “I don’t have to wait for death. I can just deliver it.

” That was the spotted hyena, a scavenger build that got strong enough to merk its own prey. Basically, imagine a Tasmanian devil, but again on steroids. Same bone-crushing bite, just now inflicting it on the living. The evolutionary end game is hyenas have arguably the strongest pound-for-pound bite force of any carnivore.

 They even evolved a sagittal crest, which strengthens their bite while also stopping the hyena from biting hard enough to break their skulls. It’s the same head attachment gorillas have. And if you look at the top of his head, you’ll see why gorillas bite hard enough to put daylight through you.

 Hyena jaws are so unfair that hyena poop often ends up being ashy, even chalky white, due to all the straight-up bone they eat. An advantage for sure, but also probably how you fell for the hyena trap. So, yeah, time to explain that title. But first, we’re going to play a game called good guy, bad guy. I promise there’s no catch. I’m just proving a point.

 If you were writing a story and the good guy is water, what would the bad guy be? Fire. Okay. Next, if your good guy is a small, smart mouse, then the bad guy would be yeah, a big, dumb cat. Last one. If your main character is a royal, brave, apex predator cat, then you expect the bad guy to be a lowly, cowardly, scavenging dog.

 Or as Simba put it, slobbering, mangy, stupid creatures. Oh my stars, hard P in a Disney? Every story needs a hero, and every hero needs a foil. And with one of the biggest animated movies ever headlining a Lion King, you’d expect the bad guys to be everything he isn’t. And so, hyenas got typecast as the opposite. They’re not even dogs, but but about all this other stuff. Well, that’s a trap.

 Because every movie, show, and documentary had lions as the good guy, hyenas were the narrative negative by default. Basically, they only existed as the opposite of lions. That’s probably why at some point in your life, possibly 3 minutes ago, you thought they were dogs. Because it only makes sense that the biggest enemy of a cat would be the furthest thing from one.

 That’s not the only way hyenas got done dirty, either. The most infamous sound associated with hyenas is a misunderstanding. The hyena laugh is one of the most bowel-evacuating sounds on the savanna, and it’s a nervous tick. Hyenas usually laugh when anxious or stressed, especially in social situations. Like you’ll usually hear it when a subordinate is being pressed by a higher rank, and the laugh even communicates the age and social status to further avoid a fight.

 But you especially hear it when hyenas are at a kill, especially around lions. And it was this image, these cackling canine marauders stealing from these noble, self-respecting lions, when really it’s usually reversed. It’s actually the burly, kill-jacking lion pirating the smaller hyena, who can only stress giggle about it.

 A study in the 1970s between the two apexes of the Serengeti found that when hyenas and lions appeared at the same carcass, 53% of the time it was the hyenas that had done the work of hunting. In a series of 13 studies across 10 locations in Africa, hyenas lost about more than half of their kills to lions compared to the about a third lions lost to hyenas.

 But before you pity the hyena, the same study also found that if you were to add up the sheer biomass they steal and get stolen from each other, hyenas don’t take a big loss from lions. They actually end up getting similar amounts from each other. And that’s cuz with a garbage disposal for a mouth and trash compactor for a stomach, spotted hyenas could close the gap by scavenging off the bits the big cats left behind.

 With the most devastating bite of its carnivore in competition, only hyenas can turn a buffalo to a blood stain and eat everything in between. The problem is people saw hyenas and lions fighting for food, food that the hyenas were the ones to bring down, and then hyenas eating straight bone, and came to the conclusion that hyenas are just career thieving scavengers.

 Add the creepy cold chuckle and you have the perfect antagonistic plot device to a lion. That’s no hate to lions, by the way. Honor is the name of a dead cat. If you’re a 500-lb weapon and someone a quarter your size eats a steak in front of you, you act accordingly. Hyenas and lions have the most iconic rivalry in the animal kingdom. Let me know.

 Like the video if you want a video on that. That lore has layers. Part of it is a lion named He Who Greets Fire, a lion who merked so many hyenas, >> [music] >> he was basically Lion King Von. Ultimately, this rivalry is the best kind, balanced. And what one side takes eventually evens itself out. Simba still had no business fixing his mouth to use that word, especially when talking about the most dominant predator in Africa.

Lions are the top predator in that if all the ops of the savanna spawned at the same carcass, a prime male lion would eat first. [music] The spotted hyena is number one in the sense that in parts of the savanna, hyenas are responsible for half of all animals killed. By population, they’re the most successful predator in Africa.

 And up to 70% of a hyena’s diet is something they took off the senses themselves. In some places, that number can rise to as high as 95%, completely going against the scavenger label. They also have a hunting success rate that would embarrass your favorite predator. And in terms of pack hunting, they dwarf the success of wolves.

 The only pack more efficient than hyenas are African wild dogs, and hyenas basically do what they do on steroids. The difference between the two apexes of Africa is lions run, hyenas chase. Spotted hyenas can tail prey at nearly 40 mph and keep that pace for the length of a 5K, but there are records of hyenas chasing prey into exhaustion for nearly 15 miles.

Basically, in an area code with lions, leopards, and wild dogs, you’re more likely to get hunted down by a glorified mongoose, which is why the hyena’s laugh isn’t the scariest sound they make. If you hear a hyena whoop at night, you might not see the sun. The whoop can have a lot of uses, and the main one is to call for backup.

 And these whoops can be transmitted miles away. If you’re a buffalo cornered by four hyenas and hear whooping, it can genuinely go from four to 40. Hyenas are marathon-running gang mongooses, and I do mean gang. A normal wolf pack is just a mated pair with several generations of their kids. In comparison, hyena clans are matrilineal cliques built off brute force, alliances, and nepotism.

 [music] To put it in perspective, a study was done on the 1,000 mammals most likely to kill their own kind, and the runaway winner were meerkats. And remember what I said, take it out your pocket. Hyenas are giant pack-hunting meerkats, and their society can be just as oppressive. Hyena clans are famously female-dominated, and as a male, it only gets worse when you get older.

 Males born to an alpha female can enjoy the fruits of nepotism, but as a male, once you’re forced to join a new clan, you start at the very bottom. And by bottom, I mean a female cub born 3 days ago instantly ranks over you and gets a place at the carcass before you do. And as a post-dispersal male, the only chance you have of moving up the ranks is if a male above you either dies or disappears.

 [music] The hyena’s female-first hierarchy is the second most famous thing about them. It’s why Shenzi was the leader. But the most famous thing, yeah, we’ve gotten to that part. Look, we already know what’s coming, but this is strictly for educational purposes. We’re going to be mature about this. That being said, viewer discretion is advised.

 If you’re watching with kids, it might just be their bedtime. Female hyenas have a pseudo penis, one that they have to give birth through. And yes, it is as graphically awful as you think it is. The process involves a pseudo violently splitting open, and 20% of first-time mothers die. Worse, 60% of firstborns suffocate to death before technically starting life.

 How did hyenas get here? We used to think female hyenas had more testosterone in their blood to explain the aggressiveness, but it turns out females tested at lower levels than males. That’s cuz it’s actually what happens in the womb. As cubs inside the womb, unborn hyenas get flushed with androgen sex hormones, specifically androstenedione.

 This exposure heavily masculinizes the female cub and basically gives them roid rage. With proof that high-ranking mothers go on to have equally aggressive children, those doses of hormones are why hyenas will attempt to kill their siblings fresh out the womb. This isn’t play fighting.

 They’re genuinely trying to take each other’s heads off, especially the girls, because offing your sister just means one less rung to climb on the social ladder. Hyenas are also born with their eyes open and a full functional set of teeth. And the literal on-site sibling rivalry means a quarter of all hyena cubs born never make it out the den.

 That testosterone flush also masculinizes their genitals, as the female cub’s clitoris morphs into an imitation male organ, one they have to pee, give birth, and mate through. You might ask why evolution would allow this. And that’s when you got to remember, evolution isn’t survival of the fittest. It’s survival of just being good enough to not die out.

 There are plenty of examples of evolution heavily handicapping animals. Even the lion’s most famous feature can make him less fertile. But as long as it doesn’t doom the species, evolution will remain Ray Charles to it. Hyenas don’t have a pseudo because it’s an advantage, but because it wasn’t enough of a disadvantage to completely discontinue them.

 But that doesn’t mean they don’t find a way to use them. The very concept of hyenas mating means it is impossible for a male to mount a female without the female’s consent, giving females a 100% say in who she gets with. Hyenas also use the pseudo situation to resolve conflict, [music] and in hyena society, a private standing at attention is actually a sign of submissiveness.

 So, a lower rank can wave the white flag by flashing her pink one. There’s also the theory that in a female-dominated society, a false member helps female cubs avoid violence and bullying from older ranks by masking the female cub as male. I still don’t think that’s worth risking going back into her just to give birth, but reminder, if it doesn’t kill you, evolution could care less about it, and the babirusa can continue to get lobotomized by that reality.

 That reality is the pseudo is actually a symptom of androstedione, and the reason for that is evolution favored more aggressive hyenas that could defend their cubs and their place at the dinner table. That being said, hyena society doesn’t run on violence. There’s actually an interesting level of social engineering.

 Hyenas are way more socially intelligent than they get credit for. For example, hyenas have an alarm call to warn the clan of lions or other hyenas, but if a low-ranking mother sees her cub being pushed around, she’ll make a false call just to get the heat off her kid. Hyenas also seem to understand social engineering.

 The best way I’ve seen it described is hyena A knows how hyena B feels about hyena C and will use that to her advantage. You don’t really see that kind of social manipulation with wolves, making hyenas a lot more like mongoose chimp hybrids. And speaking of chimps, hyenas actually outperform them in cooperative problem-solving puzzles.

 That doesn’t mean they’re smarter, but it’s possible hyenas are more hardwired to use teamwork. It makes sense when you look at a hyena clan. You can have up to 80 members, each with a clearly defined spot in the hierarchy. Cubs inherit their mother’s rank, which is actually how you can end up with a male leading a clan through the power of nepotism.

Unless they leave, because again, non-native males start as a dirt under the social ladder. So, you think this system’s pretty set in stone, and for the most part it is, but as a hyena, you can actually finesse your way pretty high up if you’re smart enough, because it’s actually not how strong or tough you are as a hyena.

 It’s all about who your friends are, and nobody proved that point better than Waffles. Oh, I love this story. Okay, so Waffles was a female hyena at the very bottom of her clan. As a bottomer, you get the scraps the others leave behind. You’re constantly getting pressed by your superiors, but worst of all, as a low rank, any cubs Waffles would have would be at immediate risk of getting merked by a higher rank.

 Clearly, this is no way to live, but the question you should be asking yourself is WWWD. What would Waffles do? You can’t really unlock the answer without getting into just what a hyena clan is. So, let’s get into it. Obviously, you have the alpha female and all her cubs who inherit her rank. If her cubs have cubs, they’ll rank right under them.

 This whole block would be called a matrilineal group, and a hyena clan is made of multiple matrilineals. Hyena nepotism means the weakest member of the strongest matrilineal group ranks over the strongest member of the second strongest group. And remember, if you’re a male, you get to enjoy that nepotism so long as you’re born into the right group until you have to find a new clan, which they might choose not to do because, again, any new males join at the very bottom of the hierarchy with the only chance of any upward mobility being

after a superior male dies or disperses. But, it’s normally a highly rigid system with very little chance of promotion. Unless you’re Waffles. Because lower ranks can challenge higher ranks for their status, and those challenges aren’t what you think they are because hyenas are good at math. Instead of ripping each other apart and possibly putting both hyenas out of commission, a challenge looks more like a lower rank posturing and confronting a higher rank with her social network of friends behind her. If the challenged senses

that the challenger has managed to rally more support than she can match, she’ll often just submit and surrender her rank, allowing the challenger to move up. And that’s what Waffles did. Biologists Eli Strauss and Kay Holekamp watched her systematically befriend fellow bottomers, creating alliances and buffing her social cachet.

 And when it became time for her to confront her superiors, Waffles’ social game meant that she was able to win the match without actually having to throw down. Waffles wasn’t the strongest and definitely not the meanest, but by using the power of friendship, she rapidly rose up the rigid hyena ranks until she eventually managed to overthrow the clan’s matriarch.

 In the course of just 1 year, Waffles went from a bottom feeder to the leader of the clan. And most importantly, she had earned her future cubs an infinitely better chance at life. But then something interesting happened. Even as the new matriarch, Waffles never forgot her day once and was exceptionally friendly with the bottom tiers of the clan.

 Maybe her soft spot for low ranks was from her time as one. She’d do things like share food, help groom, and at one point she even shared a den with a lower rank. And let me remind you that another matriarch would have murked the subordinate’s cubs. [music] Yet Waffles was sharing a crib with them. In fact, Waffles’ best friend would actually be the second lowest rank in the clan, making Waffles even more of an anomaly.

 Waffles went from a peasant with no prospects to a leader with a legacy. A legacy of syrup. Because obviously, with a name like Waffles, your children are going to have names like Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Butterworth, Log Cabin, Hungry Jack. Of course, nothing worth having is easy to keep. And after several years as leader, Waffles was slowly dethroned in the syrup rebellion.

 But the hyena that took the reins was Waffles’ granddaughter Syrup, ensuring [music] that the syrup lineage remains at the top of the North Clan. It also means Waffles’ descendants get a much better start to life than she ever did. And as a hyena and a mother, that’s all she ever wanted. And on that note, that’s going to do it for this video.

 Except for one thing, and I’m just going to apologize right now. Oh, yeah, it’s a thirst trap, but it’s a thirst trap for turtles. My birthday just passed, you can still wish me a happy one. But in an exercise of free will, I figured I could just get two birds with one stone. I could post a picture that, like, let’s be real, I was going to post anyway. I average like 2.

3 thirst traps a year, but also help turtles in the process. So I set up three GoFundMe’s for three turtle organizations I believe in. Sea Turtle Conservancy is the world’s oldest sea turtle research group and it’s working to the greater Costa Rica, shout out to Costa Rica, is the longest-running sea turtle project on Earth.

 Sea Turtle Recovery is the only long-term rehabilitation facility for sea turtles in my home state of New Jersey and Turtle Survival Alliance is the gold standard for the conservation of turtles and tortoises. Link’ll be in the description if you’d like to donate to any of these. I’ve already given $500 to each, but I will add an additional 5,000 to whichever fundraiser raises the most.