At 14 years old, BLG is the oldest member of South Clan! Though she is the older sister of the matriarch, the “youngest ascendancy” rule has pushed her down the dominance hierarchy into a mid- to low-ranking position. She is currently raising her 8th litter of cubs, a single cub named WINX. Nonetheless, her linage remains relatively small as she has only raised her daughter, BSCT, and her son, PHRH, to adulthood successfully.
Rachel Carson – RACH
RACH is a subadult male who grew up during the pandemic. His mother has been missing since last year, so his only remaining kin is his cousin, DETH. RACH is almost 3 years old; he will likely leave South Clan soon to find a new clan. Right before dispersal, subadult males tend to distance themselves from the other natal animals – we generally see them hanging out with immigrant males, other subadults who may be dispersing soon, or by themselves along the edge of the territory.
Death Star – DETH
DETH is a 9-year-old female and the granddaughter of the former matriarch, JAVA. She was pushed from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom third when SNUG and her sisters took over after JAVA’s death. Generally, a matriarch’s youngest adult daughters will fight over the matriarchy when she dies, but both Happy Zebra and South Clan experienced drastic hierarchy shifts after the deaths of their most recent matriarchs. Since losing her high rank, DETH has not been able to raise any of her litters to adulthood successfully.
Honor Harrington – HONR
HONR is an 8-year-old female that is relatively low-ranking. She had her first litter when she was 5 years old (recall that the high-ranking ISSA may already be pregnant at 2). HONR is currently at a natal den, though we have not seen her new cubs yet. Spotted hyenas give birth in a secluded den (natal den), where they keep their cubs for 2-4 weeks before bringing them to the communal den.
Update from December: HONR moved her cubs to the communal den for a couple of weeks, before ultimately moving them to her sister's natal den.
Capellini – CAPE
CAPE is a 2-year-old male subadult and a master of disguise. In the Mara Triangle, we rarely see den-graduated cubs and subadults during our regular observation sessions. Many earlier blog posts have alluded to this, but the tall grass, wallows, and rocks all provide perfect cover for the hyenas to hide from us (or, more likely, lions). And if you thought that having VHF tracking on these collars would make things easier, think again! The other night, I drove by CAPE three times before I finally found him sleeping in the shade of a massive boulder.
Jean-Luc Picard – JLP
JLP is a 12-year-old adult female in the lowest-ranking matriline of the clan, and the mother of KNIN and MCKY. She is currently at her natal den, nursing ACE, the newest addition to South Clan. Like most low-ranking hyenas, JLP is one of our more elusive individuals and spends most of her time away from the more gregarious high rankers. In fact, we nearly gave up on darting her until the GPS points from HONR, JLP’s sister, led us right to her natal den. Phew!
Mickey Smith – MCKY
At 23 months old, MCKY is the youngest hyena to wear one of our collars. She is currently at the tail-end of the most dangerous life stage for hyenas: the time between den graduation and adulthood. During this time, young hyenas often venture out on their own, or with their littermate if they have one, and encounter all types of troubles… namely lions, but also the risk of starvation as their slow skull development puts them at a huge disadvantage while feeding. However, the odds of survival increase dramatically when a hyena turns 2 years old, so we have our fingers crossed for MCKY!
K9 – KNIN
KNIN is our lowest-ranking female in the clan. Life’s not easy at the bottom of the hierarchy, but she seems to manage just fine! She is currently raising her second litter of cubs at the communal den and usually has a full belly when we see her. Maybe she’s a talented hunter? Time (and our collar data) will tell! We did find one surprise while collaring her: she is missing one of the toe pads on her hind right paw. We didn’t see any scars, so she was likely born this way.
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| KNIN's foot with the missing "toe." |
Texas Slim – SLIM
SLIM is a 9-year-old immigrant male who stems from North Clan. He joined South Clan in December 2015, making him the highest-ranking adult male in South. Unlike natal animals, immigrant males follow a “queueing” system for their dominance rank: when a male joins a new clan, he usually becomes the lowest ranking hyena in the entire clan. To rise in rank, he must wait for the immigrant males who have been around for longer than him to die or move on by dispersing again to a different clan.
Strummer – STRM
STRM migrated from North Clan to South Clan in 2016, making him one of our long-term males in South. Research shows that spotted hyena males undergo an “endurance rivalry”, meaning that they generally must stay in their new clan for at least 2 years before siring their first cub. This is not always an easy feat as the lowest-ranking members of the clan, but STRM seems to have made close alliances with STAR, one of our females, and SLIM, another long-term immigrant.
Bakersfield – BAKR
BAKR is one of the immigrant males in South Clan. We are not sure which clan is his natal clan (where he was born), but we’re sure glad he chose South as his new home! Although female spotted hyenas stay in their natal clan for their entire lives, males usually disperse when they are sexually mature to find mates. This is an important aspect of hyena ecology that prevents inbreeding.
Silver Spring – SLVR
SLVR is an adult male who immigrated into South Clan at the end of 2019. Immediately after collaring SLVR, he decided to go on a “vacation” to Tanzania. Our GPS data indicate that KNIN, a lower-ranking adult female, also went to Tanzania for a few days, and several other hyenas have gone on excursions outside of South territory in the past couple of weeks. These hyenas are likely trying to find food as the migration has officially moved back to Tanzania, leaving South territory with relatively few prey animals.
Momo – MOMO
MOMO is a 7-year-old immigrant male originally from our North Clan. MOMO’s mother is a high ranker in North Clan, so MOMO enjoyed the “sweet life” before emigrating. However, once males immigrate into a new clan, they behave submissively to all hyenas they encounter, which makes them automatically lower ranking than all natal clan animals. MOMO seems to have adjusted well to the drastic decline in rank: we found very few scratch/bite marks on his body, and research shows that males who were higher-ranking in their natal clan often have an easier time when immigrating into a new clan.
Lexington – LEXI
LEXI immigrated into South Clan at the beginning of 2020, which seemed to be a hectic time for the clan. During the span of 2 weeks, we saw 9 new aliens in the territory, 8 of which officially joined the clan. Unfortunately, all researchers had to leave the field around this time because the pandemic, so we’re still not sure what caused this immigrant boom.
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