Tiny, Cute and Ferocious!

On our twice-daily observation drives, as you might expect, we spend a lot of time at the dens, observing hyenas. But their territories are vast, and in our time exploring them, we often come across other mammalian carnivores that are of interest to us, and we record the number and locations of these for population estimates. Some of the more common sightings include a few of the small canids: black-backed jackals, which are often seen in groups of two, as they are monogamous,

Black-backed jackal

 and bat-eared foxes.

Bat-eared fox

Slightly more rare is a lion sighting, usually either eating or sleeping: a lion’s two favorite activities.

Lion at sunrise

Occasionally, we’re able to catch a lion-hyena interaction, usually over a carcass, where there is a fight for control over the food. Contrary to popular belief, lions steal kills from hyenas about as frequently as the reverse happens. Spotted hyenas are not the obligate scavengers that many people think they are; they actually hunt about 95% of their own food in the Mara.

            Rarely, we’re lucky enough to spot cheetahs, or a leopard. 

Cheetah with her cubs, Photo by: Eli Strauss

Both are very difficult to find; there are only about 60 adult cheetahs  in the Mara currently (as reported by the Mara Conservancy in their monthly update), and leopards are in similar scarcity and are solitary hunters. Catching a leopard at a kill is very exciting, because often to protect their kill, they will carry the carcass up a tree. At that point their dinner is pretty secure, because anything with the gumption to scare off a leopard, like a lion or a hyena, isn’t going to make it up the tree; and anything that can make it up the tree that may be interested, like a baboon or a vulture, isn’t going to mess with a leopard.

One of the most common carnivore sightings for us, and also one of my favorites, is the banded mongoose.

Banded mongoose

 Banded mongooses are very gregarious animals, so we’ll often see them in groups ranging anywhere from ten to thirty. These little guys are cute, but they’re also ferocious. Although the majority of their diet is comprised of insects and small rodents, they have been known to take down some pretty scary snakes here and there. For a king cobra, there’s nothing worse than the site of a dozen banded mongooses charging toward you.

Mongoose cuddle puddle

 One of these mornings, if I happen to be greeted by a black mamba when I step out of my tent, I hope there’s a mongoose around to save the day! 

Sometimes you don't find hyenas

For my experiment, I have specific hyenas that I want to find consistently, so I can expose them to the device repeatedly hoping they will learn. When I can't find them, I sometimes try the box on new hyenas that have never seen "the magical meat box". The goal is to get them habituated to it and make them part of a group of bold hyenas that are my favorites, because it is critical for my research project.

However, the Talek clan hyenas live in a wide territory, and can be hard to find (also true on the other side of the reserve, see Heidi's blog post about that). One evening, we were driving through the territory, and could not find any hyenas, not even a new one to try the box on. But, we saw lions that evening. And lucky for us, there was not a bazillion tour cars around them. Benson and Wilson are so sweet they always agree with my crazy ideas, even when it means getting out of the cars around 3 subadult male lions. And so, we put the box out baited with meat for those big guys. 

NB: No cameras or research assistants were harmed in the making of this video.

From the inside of the "magical meat box"

The hardest part was to get the box back... Benson and Wilson did not allow me to get out of the car, because as a "mzungu" (white/European person in Swahili) I did not know how to deal with a hungry/playful lion, but as Maasai, they do (Wilson already saved me from a lion in camp once, but that's another story). 

Early conclusions of that experiment: 

- lions are brutes

- lions are not afraid of novel objects AT ALL

- lions use their paws a lot more than hyenas

- Kong toys are indestructible (you can't see on this video, but at the very beginning, one lion ripped the toy off the rope and chewed on it for a minute, but not even a scratch was found on that toy. Also, the hyenas who have a very strong jaw don't damage them). 

- if we want to replicate that experiment, we need a VERY heavy box. 

Next time we can't find a hyena, we want to try it on a cheetah, with no tour cars and no hyenas around. Not an easy task...

Pride comes before the fall

High-ranking hyenas LOVE to show off their kills.  Unlike their low-ranking comrades who must scarf down their food as quickly as possible before it gets stolen from them, these high-rankers can hold onto their scraps for hours.  And what do they do with this extra time, you might ask - eat more slowly?  No!  Instead they take their carcass in mouth and gleefully parade around the low-rankers, gloating over their companions' misfortune of having a lower status.  But sometimes, as they say, pride comes before the fall...even in the world of hyenas.

Yesterday, Eremet arrived at the Happy Zebra den holding a scrap of gazelle carcass in her mouth, nonchalantly flaunting her rank.  But things quickly went downhill from there...

Eremet innocently drops her scrap to sniff the cubs at the denhole. 

Round 1: Puff, her son, emerges from the den and grabs it... 

...and drags it into the denhole.

Eremet recovers her scrap, and the cubs stream out of the den after her (and the scrap).
Eremet: 1, cubs: 0.

Round 2: Puff grabs hold of the scrap again, now joined by his brother, Smaug. 

Success! They drag it back into the denhole...1 point for the boys? 

No! Eremet reaches into the den and yanks the scrap back out...still 0 points for the cubs.

Round 3: This time it's serious. Puff and his brother bring backup -
their cousins, Daddy Longlegs and Recluse.

Puff grabs hold of the scrap, and together the cubs drag it back into the denhole.

Seems like third time's the charm in this game...

Or not! Eremet, fed up, squeezes herself down into the denhole... 

...grabs the scrap...

...and drags it, with Puff still attached, to the top of the denhole.  Eremet: 3, cubs: 0 

Winner winner, carcass dinner?
Eremet saunters off with her scrap as the cubs watch sadly from the den.

Termite and Hyenas

            Termite mounds are a staple of the savanna landscape. Abandoned termite mounds become the framework for the dens of many different creatures, excellent perches for Topi as they survey the landscape, and the pedestals of choice for displaying black bellied bustards. While some termite mounds stand alone in a field of tall grass, others clump together and form a web of evenly spaced mounds that covers a wide area.

            This high density of termite mounds turns out to have profound consequences for the ecosystem. Pringle et al (2010) found that sticky traps located close to an area densely packed with termite mounds collected more flying insects than did sticky traps located further from termite mounds. Furthermore, trees located close to areas with densely packed mounds tended to be larger and hosted more geckos and spiders than did trees further from termite-dense areas. They showed that this trend was not driven by direct effects of termites on geckos, trees or spiders; rather, termites were causing changes in soil composition, which in turn affected primary productivity and produced a cascade of increased biotic interactions in the regions around these mounds. Finally, they showed that regular spacing of mounds, produced by the strict non-overlapping foraging areas of different termite colonies, caused more dramatic increases in biotic interactions than did the same number of colonies spaced randomly.

“That’s great, but what does it have to do with hyenas?” Well, not much. But it’s cool, right!?

But, like much of my life these days, this recent discovery does relate to hyenas in some way. We were at the South den the other night when a nearby termite mound began to bloom. This means that, suddenly, thousands of winged termites began pouring from the top of the mound and flying off. EVIL and SNUG, two 6 month old den cubs, immediately leapt up from where they were resting and began devouring the winged insects as they came out of the mound! I don’t know how they knew that the commotion coming from the nearby mound was actually a delicious meal, but somehow they did. I hope you guys enjoy the video as much as they enjoyed their crunchy snacks!

Check out the Pringle et al (2010) article for free here!

Modern Times at Fig Tree Clan

Hadley’s last post consisted of some great stories about our Fig Tree clan. So, I decided to give an update about this troublesome group of hyenas.

Fig Tree tends to give us researchers a headache. That's because it’s much farther away (about an hour drive from our camp), the hyenas like to go missing for months at a time, and their territory is the definition of “inconvenient” (it’s quite large and there are huge impassable luggas that cut through it.) Also, all the females look like this:

Tudor looking much like Carol Doda, Einstein, Lu, or any other of the adult females.

So, they’re hard to ID.

That being said, the clan’s territory is beautiful and we always see a variety of wildlife.

A martial eagle peering around for a potential breakfast snack.

The hyenas are interesting and quite the characters (see blog post on eggs.)

Chewbacca being a goofball.

And apparently, some things never change!

Hadley saw a lion/hyena interaction when they were looking for the lost clan, and so did we! In our case, the lions had stolen some recently killed ungulate from the hyenas.

As of right now, the females have chosen the most wonderful dens for observation. Whilst the Talek clan seems to prefer wooded bushy (as well as very-difficult-to-see-for-researchers) dens (see Ashlei’s post) the Fig tree clan has chosen a den that is open to the world. You can even snap shots of the sunset whilst watching young cubs play around the den hole. It’s a hyena researcher’s dream.

Ah...research.

Naru is bombarded by the group of cub-lings that congregate at our new Theory of Evolution Den.

Einstein decides it's time to move Mike Wazowski to a new den. His sibling James P. Sullivan trails behind (not pictured.)

After having lost the clan for a couple of months (typical) we found their communal den hole complex (in December) and have thus come across eleven new hyena members. So many cubs!

A young Mike Wazowski/James P. Sullivan head pokes from behind his mom Einstein.

Einstein's two cubs along with Kibera and Mathare (Lu's cubs) play around on top of Einstein.

Einstein ignores...

Einstein continues to ignore, but I could not and snapped this photo just in the nick of time.

Now comes the hard part, gathering data on all the new comers. Although such tasks are not without their perks! (See adorable video below.)

The “Where’s Waldo” effect

Put yourself if our shoes for one moment:

You are in the dry savanna. The hot sun beating down on your skin is setting along the horizon. There is tall golden grass as far as the eye can see. The car you are in is bumping down an unpaved, rock-laden, dirt road. You ask to pause the vehicle because you see a possible hyena in the distance. You put dusty binoculars to your eyes once the car is turned off because even the slow humming of the car disturbs your bino-vision. You scan the area to find that your hyena sighting is… just a rock.

This rock...NOT a hyena.

Photo by: Heidi Rogers

Even as seasoned research assistants, we tend to err on the side of caution when looking for hyenas. You never know if in fact what you think is a rock IS a hyena.

Can you see the hyena between these rocks?

Photo by: Eli Strauss

Perhaps a close-up will help...

Photo by: Eli Strauss

Even in relatively short grass, a hyena can still blend in.

Photo by: Molly McEntee

Rocks, of course, are not the only hyena mimicker. There are a plethora of bushes, grass clumps, and stumps that waste a good amount of our time in the search for hyenas. 

At the right distance and angle, this stump will get you every time.

Photo by: Heidi Rogers

There are other hyena impersonators living in the triangle, some of which are not even inanimate! Topi for one lope just like a hyena. The ears of warthogs poking out of the tall grass is another.

The "Where's Waldo" effect is a part of our everyday struggle in the search for hyenas. It is always a shameful admission of defeat that the reason we stopped the vehicle was to investigate a pile of elephant poop.

Fig Tree Flashback

Seeing Ashlei’s recent blog post, with the photo of Potter and Kibera brought on a powerful Fig Tree flashback…

Let me set the stage:

February 2014: We’d had 12 weeks of observing the Fig Tree communal den scene as they moved from Pallet Town Den, to Passion Fanta Den, to Tempest Den, and finally settling in at Nancy Drew Den. Much like the den Ashlei described for Fig Tree, all these dens were in the middle of an open plain. We would arrive early evening, park the car, and watch the comings, the goings, the interactions, and the cubs’ social behavior (read: unbelievable cuteness) for hours.

Nancy Drew Den, January 2014 (All photos from H. Couraud)

Jean Grey, perched on her mom Potter, with Wolverine nursing 

Thus was our pattern, one we looked forward to greatly each time we went out. Fig Tree has historically posed a challenge for researchers – the territory is farther from our camp and the conditions of the roads during rainy seasons make it very difficult to get to the clan regularly. We had a firm handle on who each of the cubs were, and were gathering very specific behavior data.

And then came February 23rd.

The excerpt from our notes read...

1758   @Nancy Drew D

            No hyenas visible

So began the search. A lot of stunning grasses…and not a lot of hyenas.

Though we were sad they were no longer at such a great den for viewing, moving communal dens is a normal part of hyena biology. Boydston et al found that the hyenas in the Talek clan move communal dens about once a month on average, though the length of time at any one den and the timing of the moves was highly variable (2006). Reasons for moving could range from human disturbance, lion presence, or parasite buildup at the site; it is a facet of hyena biology still poorly understood (Boydston et al, 2006). Higher-ranking females appear to lead more of the den moves (Holekamp et al., 2000) and the lower-ranking females then move as well – this keeps their cubs with their peers and able to benefit from the socialization and association with higher-rankers and their cubs (Holekamp et al., 1997). But I digress…

So, when you can’t find the communal den, a carcass session, or even lone hyenas, what do you do? We started with the GPS collars. 

February 26^th we travelled to where Rohan’s (an adult female with cubs) points had been congregating. Why was she so far away? Had the clan moved a significant distance, or was this travel just a trip for ROH? Thanks to the individual personality of each hyena, it was impossible to tell. We didn’t find ROH, but we did see Wanugu! Our excitement at seeing one of the clan couldn’t extend much further however – seeing a male of dispersing age doesn’t necessarily give you many hints of where the rest of the clan is.

Then we decided to ‘den hop’. Twenty-two known communal dens later, we hadn’t found any new signs of occupation. Curiously, we did see three female sub-adults. Did that mean the clan was still in the area?

Then we took the follow-an-individual route, hoping to be led to the den. Fifty-five minutes of following later, night set in and we could not longer maintain a visual in the thicket on the hyena we were staying with.

By April 17^th, we hadn’t had any luck, even after driving systematic transects across the plains. On our way home, we saw three large forms in the distance….hardly daring to hope, we drove up and confirmed we were seeing three adult female hyenas! The flicker of hope that ignited was quickly extinguished however when we identified them as females from the neighboring clan. That confirmed our growing suspicion – if adult females from another clan were meandering lackadaisically, the Fig Tree clan has certainly moved to another region entirely. 

Brazil, a Mara River clan hyena, on April 17th

April 23^rd – Dave and I set out, heading into the northern region of the Mara where we had been searching recently. We were cautiously excited when we saw Donatello, one of the clan’s sub-adult females. A great sign, but one we had been fooled with before. Then we saw Wanugu – another good sign, but let me remind you of the dispersing male characteristic. And then I heard a slight, ‘Beep. Beep. Beep’. Our tracking was picking up one of our collared females! Now that was a good sign. We switched the headphones so Dave could drive and track, gradually picking up a stronger and stronger signal.

And then, at 1757….(hint: no impending dashed hopes here…) we found not just Fig Tree hyenas but 16 of them, cubs included! Our excitement was palpable and my joy was hard to contain to the professional research mode. (For the record, I did manage it, though with great effort)

If that wasn’t enough, nine of the hyenas began loping very purposely to the east. 

Red Rover, loping to the East

We drove off in pursuit, crested a hill, were afforded a stunning view of the landscape laid in front of us in the softening colors of dusk, and then rested our eyes on the two adult male lions, surrounded by 23 of the Fig Tree hyenas.

We hadn’t just found the clan, we had found their communal den, were witnessing a lion-hyena interaction, and had more Fig Tree hyenas in one place than I had seen in my entire time in the Mara to date.

After two months to the day of searching for and wanting to observe behaviors (read: ‘missing them’, in less scientific terms), this was a night I still beam at when remembering.

Sources

Boydston, E.E., Kapheim, K.M. & Holekamp, K.E. (2006) Patterns of den occupation by the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). Afr. J. Ecol. 44, 77-86.

Holekamp, K.E., Cooper, S.M., Katona, C.I., Berry, N.A., Frank, L.G. & Smale, L. (1997) Patterns of association among female spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta). J. Mammal. 78, 55–64.

Holekamp, K.E., Boydston, E.E. & Smale, L. (2000) p. 587–627 Group travel in social carnivores. In: On the Move: How and Why Animals Travel in Groups (Eds S. Boinski and P. A. Garber). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.