A Hyena is a Hyena, No Matter How Small

There are four species of modern day hyena.  We study the spotted hyena, so we use hyena broadly to mean the spotted hyena.  However, there are still the brown hyena, striped hyena, and aardwolf that make of the hyena family.

In the field, I’m conducting experiments to test (spotted) hyenas’ boldness in response to an intruder (spotted) hyena, modeled by a life-sized spotted hyena archery target.  Recently, I was conducting one of these Target trials with Ojibway in our Happy Zebra territory.  Unfortunately, Omaha appeared (how do hyenas hide on a wide open plain with short grass?!?) and interrupted the trial, which kind of flustered me as I was trying to keep track of what both hyenas were doing.  I kept my camera recording the trial, hoping to get some data from Ojibway, and she was actually interacting with Target.  I was very focused on my camera on Ojibway, and eventually, I noticed another hyena-like figure out of the corner of my eye coming the from the direction we had seen Tempe 15 minutes earlier.  I said to Emily, who was in the car with me, “Good grief, here comes Tempe too.”  Emily briefly looks and says that she thinks it’s a jackal.  

What is that?!

That is when I realize the scale out of the corner of my eye was totally off, it’s actually a smaller animal much closer than I thought.  As I’m focusing on this new interloper, I briefly think that that’s no jackal, it looks a bit like an alien (I have no idea what made me think that, maybe the halo around it as the sun was shining through its fur) and shout, “What on earth is that?!”  Then it turned...

Stripes!

“Oh my god, that’s striped...aardwolf!”  Yes, an aardwolf, the smallest hyena species, interrupted my trial...  I proceeded to stammer about not knowing what to do; aardwolves are really rare for us to see, and I was already trying to keep track of too many things.  Luckily Ojibway and Omaha were leaving, so Emily and I just stared at this amazing aardwolf sighting.  My only previous aardwolf sightings were of them running away into the distance, but this guy was just standing there staring at Target; apparently the aardwolf was confused by the “intruder” too.

So, of all my ruined target trials, this one is probably my favorite.  The constant surprises of field work!

He was very interested in Target...

Target, Interrupted

By Moira Donovan, IRES 2013

Hey there! I’m Moira, one of the new IRES students assisting the lab this summer. I’m currently stationed in the Serena Camp, helping with “Target” trials. “Target” is a life-size styrofoam model of a hyena, made by a company that manufactures archery targets—hence his name. Julie, the graduate student whose research I am helping with, uses Target to test hyena “boldness.” Her research focuses on social intelligence (how well a hyena interacts with others in a group environment) and personality aspects that might contribute to it. We measure boldness by observing whether a hyena approaches Target and when the hyena realizes Target is not an actual hyena.

In order to conduct a Target trial, we first need to find a lone hyena traveling a predictable path. We then drive ahead of the hyena, deposit Target along its path, and wait nearby to observe what the hyena does. Two nights ago, Julie, Lily, and I went out on our usual evening observations in search of an opportunity for a Target trial. We drove to the Happy Zebra Clan Territory, hoping to find an unsuspecting individual. I never imagined I would be so lucky as to experience what happened next.

Target and Moira

Soon after entering the territory, we spotted a single hyena loping along. We sat in our seats, deciding whether this would be a proper candidate for a trial, as the hyena rushed across the road and continued in a straight line. Clearly, this one was headed somewhere important. As Lily turned the Hilux off-road and we began to pursue, the urgency of the chase dawned on us – we could hardly keep up at 25kph. We hit a rocky portion, forcing us to slow down, and we were sure we would lose sight of the unidentified hyena. As we maneuvered around the rocks we saw three more hyenas join the first, bolting toward a herd of Cape buffalo. On the outskirts of what must have been 200 buffalo, we saw the hyenas and knew we were going to witness something extraordinary.

Spotted hyenas typically prefer to hunt alone rather than potentially lose their meal to a higher-ranked individual. This time, however, we spotted at least ten individuals when we got there, and a few others arrived in the following hour. Despite our difficulties recording hyena behavior through the darkness, rain, and tall grass, the effects of a large hunting party were clear. While two hyenas warded off an adult buffalo’s charges, several others closed a circle around a fallen calf and began to feed, taking advantage of their allies’ efforts. Once the adult buffalo gave up on trying to protect the calf, what followed may have seemed to the untrained eye (like mine) like a free-for-all between the hungry hyenas. But if you can observe closely, and if you know the identity and social status of each hyena, you can see method in the madness.

Higher-ranked individuals have priority of access to resources. In spotted hyena society, this means that feeding order is dictated by matriline: the highest-ranked female and her relatives eat first, then the next highest-ranked female and her relatives, and so on. The more dominant clan-mates chase off lower-ranked individuals who attempt to feed before their turns. Since immigrant males are at the bottom of the hierarchy, the three that were present were pushed to the outskirts and could only feed on scraps. As this event unfolded on just my the third night in the Mara, I had no clue as to which hyenas were who, but followed Julie and Lily as they called out behaviors and IDs while I filmed.

After the excitement of the hunt comes the analysis of the video. Because of the darkness and chaos of the hunt, we were unable to accurately identify individuals or behaviors at the time. Video recordings of events can be watched over and over again and at slow speed, to allow us to see what the hyenas actually did that night. One hour of video footage equated to three solid days of analysis. For analysis, all of the important behaviors performed by the hyenas are recorded in a text shorthand transcription for later reference. In order to record behaviors, however, one must be competent in identifying individual hyenas. I have not yet reached competence in that regard, but look forward to the day when my skills allow me to argue with another research assistant about who will drive during and who will transcribe after our observations.

In the past week, I have learned that most days in the field do not include so much drama. Although we didn’t manage to do a Target trial that evening, such interruptions in data collection add to the unpredictability of the field. In a place as new to me as the Mara, though, it’s the small and seemingly unremarkable moments that renew this experience, day after day. So, until I see another kill, the everyday beauty of the Mara – from the sunset reflecting off the grass to seeing the cutest baby elephant or a species of bird I never knew existed – keeps me fixed on this place. In the meantime, I am hoping for some Target trials….

Alien Abduction!

I don’t know if you would remember from last summer, but part of my research is looking at hyenas’ boldness. So, I have been doing tests with a life-size model hyena which hyenas seem to interpret as an intruder. This model is actually an archery target, so we call it Target. Last year, I introduced you to Target and Junior, and this year I brought Targé III to the Mara with me.

The newly set up Targé III

Anyways, I have been conducting the same experiments as last year where I put Target out in front of a lone hyena and see how they react to the “intruder” to measure their boldness. I’m doing this experiment again this year firstly to get enough data to analyze; secondly, I want to compare the data I get from our Talek clans where there is a lot of human disturbance to our Serena clans where there is less human disturbance. Currently, I am in Serena, and these trials have been going really well. However, right now I’m going to tell the story of Diggory’s awful, no good, horrible, very bad day.

Diggory, otherwise known as Digs, is a hyena in our North clan at Serena. On this day in particular, I’m sure her day started as any other until she came ambling down a road by herself towards this crazy white car that always stops to look at her for a long time for some reason. Inside the car, I get all excited because it is the perfect set up for a Target trial. We rush to a bend in the road so that she won’t see us put out Targé before we even identify who is coming down the road. We pull to the side of the road to record her interaction with Targé, and Lily, the research assistant with me, actually looks at the hyena to figure out who she is. It quickly becomes apparent that the hyena is Digs because she has a big notch out of the lower part of her right ear.

Digs is sort of high ranked in the clan, which has made her a desirable target to Dave who wanted to dart her to put on a GPS collar. Dave had been trying for awhile to find a hyena around Digs’s rank to deploy his last GPS collar for his research. At first I was excited that we were getting a Target trial with Digs, but then I realized we couldn’t let Digs go out of sight at the end of the trial like I normally would if Dave was going to dart her. Diggory couldn’t disappear before Dave had a chance to reach us; he was in a different one of our territories. We let the Target trial continue, and Lily calls Dave to tell him to rush over for Digs.

Digs meanwhile is completely bewildered by Targé. She circles to get downwind of it, but she is a little hesitant to approach. She does everything in her power to figure out who this hyena is without having to get too close. In the end, Digs still gets closer to Targé than many of the Talek hyenas did, but she quickly decides to leave after doing so.

Diggory and Target

In the car, I’m trying to figure out the best time to end the trial. I can’t end it as I normally would because we would lose her, and Dave hadn’t arrived to follow her yet. In the end, I wait until she has walked about 40m away and is still facing away. We don’t want her to see us pick up Target because we don’t want the hyenas to associate too much weird stuff with our cars. However, she turns around just in time to see my summer student, Moira, lifting Targé into the back of the truck. I look up to see Digs turn around, and her whole body posture changes. She jumps, her head comes bolt upright with her ears pricked completely forward, her body tenses, and her tail sticks straight out from her body. It was then that I realize that she definitely had not recognized that Targé was not a real hyena; Digs looked as if she had just witnessed an alien abduction.

After pacing back and forth a bit, Digs seems to have settled herself enough to keep walking on, and of course, we follow. She goes off road, but we still follow her from a distance. Now we want her to be calm and not get spooked and run away before Dave can arrive to try to dart her. We slowly follow her for about twenty minutes until Dave reaches us. She keeps looking back at us, and in the car we were entertaining ourselves with a running narrative. “You’re still there? Why are you following me? I’m not doing anything interesting. I’m not even at the den with my cub where you usually spy on me. Maybe if I ignore you, you’ll go away. What, you’re still there? Good grief. You already took one hyena!”

Once Dave finds us and Digs, he continues to follow her for another hour and a half until she is in a good position to be darted. Lily, Moira, and I hang back further in case Digs somehow escapes Dave, Wes, and Emily. Finally, Digs’s morning is interrupted again when Dave darts her. We were all ecstatic because Dave had been trying for months to get that last collar out. But then the real alien abduction occurs. She is knocked out, we take all sorts of measurements from her, collect blood and bacterial samples, and then transport her in a car to a safe place to wake up.

Collecting samples and measurements from Digs

And after that terrible morning, Digs woke up wearing new jewelry, a lovely GPS collar. The collars seem to annoy them for the first day, but after that, they get used to it pretty quickly.

Digs looking spiffy in her collar

Luckily for us, Digs isn’t acting strange around the cars these days. We still see her, and now we can track her. But I wonder what she must have been thinking that entire morning.

An ode to Target and Welcoming Junior

In memory of Target, Dee sent me a picture of Target dressed in MSU hyena research swag, and Kay’s jacket. Thank you, Target, for braving all the crazy hyenas who try to attack your face.

But now we have Junior, who is in much better shape.

Unfortunately, recently the hyenas have been pretty quiet, so I haven’t had many opportunities to throw Junior out into the wild. This is the nature of field work; the animals don’t always do what you want them to.

Since Junior has arrived, he has seen some action, but luckily nothing like what Target saw. This morning, I had a near heart attack though, when Artemis bolted at Junior. Flashing through my head was, “Oh my gosh, how do I rescue Junior?!? Artemis is running so fast! AAAAH!” Luckily for Junior and me, she stopped abruptly about 10m away from Junior.

Since I am about to leave for the summer, this is probably one of Junior’s last outings until I am back next year or someone else has a good idea for Junior to do.