How low can your belly go?

A hungry adult spotted hyena can consume a LOT of food in a single meal. An adult hyena is shown in the top photo before consuming a meal. An adult female typically weighs about 65 kg (roughly 145 lbs). Although average meal size for spotted hyenas varies across Africa from 0.2 kg to 9 kg, an individual hyena can consume approximately 18 kg of meat and bone in an hour. That's 40 lbs of food, folks. Imagine how you'd feel if you had just consumed 160 Quarter Pounders at one sitting. A bit bloated, right? Well the bottom photo here shows you what a spotted hyena looks like under the same circumstances. Notice that she's still going strong, continuing to feed even though her belly is almost touching the ground. Now you can also imagine how hard it is to determine when a female spotted hyena is pregnant based on her appearance; with her belly size going up and down this much during feeding and fasting, it's very tough to detect the presence of a litter that, at most, will weigh only about 3 kg!

Why eat so much at a single meal that you can barely waddle away afterward? Well, if you're a female spotted hyena, you do this because your ability to produce and support babies is strictly determined by how much food you consume. And you never know when or where your next meal might be coming from. If you were dining at McDonald's and knew you might not be able to eat again for several days, I bet you'd probably try to jam in an extra Quarter Pounders or two yourself.

Downtime á la Africa

For a hyena, downtime usually looks something like this…


For the Homo sapiens out here, downtime is a bit harder to come by.

Honestly, between watching hyenas, thinking about hyenas, and writing about hyenas, we don’t have a whole lot of free time. And, when we do have a moment to spare, we usually spend it peering under the hood of the car, repairing tent zippers, or fixing whatever’s gone wrong with the solar panel.

On those glorious occasions that we can unwind, we make it count. Fisi Camp knows how to throw a great party. All you need is some bad American music, a campfire, and a freshly-slaughtered goat. As if by magic, everyone in a 10-mile radius – both Masai and foreign - shows up at camp within the hour. It’s a great way to take a break from work, as well as show some generosity to the local community.


Another one of our favorite leisure activities is “sundowners,” Kenya’s variation on cocktail hour. The idea is simple: rally some friends, find a hilltop with a gorgeous view, pour some libations, nibble on cashews and “crisps” (that’s “chips” to us Americans), and watch the sun go down.


Often, however, our downtime is less exotic. When there’s enough power to spare, we watch movies (our standards are pretty low, so we don’t mind watching the same 5 movies over and over and over again). When we’re out of power, we read…we have an eclectic collection of books donated by previous Fisi Camp residents. When Kay is around, we play some bizarre German board game involving railroads. We gossip, we nap, we play with our food.


While there’s a definite scarcity of downtime here, there’s certainly no shortage of ways to fill those fantastic free moments.

Killer cheetah

Cheetahs are pretty big cats, but in most cases if a cheetah encounters leopard, lion, or a hyena (hyenas are neither cats nor dogs), it will almost always retreat or give up kill. Cheetahs specialize in killing Thompson's gazelle (Tommie), a relatively small and fast animal. We have recently seen one male cheetah almost on a daily basis.

We first saw it scent marking territory not too far from our camp. Then we saw it emerging from the bushes one day and Ben said, "It looks like it is going to hunt." Being the diligent HYENA researchers that we are, we left the cheetah to look for hyenas. About 30 minutes later we saw the cheetah scarfing down a Tommie. We had never seen a cheetah hunt, so we were disappointed.

The next day we were on our way home from our morning observations when I spotted the same cheetah crouched about 30 meters from our truck. This cheetah was definitely stalking prey. I didn't want to talk, because the cheetah was close enough that my voice may have disturbed it, so I tapped Ben on the shoulder and quietly said, "cheetah." He slowed down and came to a stop just past the cheetah. I reached in the backseat for my video camera. Before I could get the camera ready, the hunt was on! There was a group of Tommie's about 150 meters away from the cheetah and it seemed an insurmountable distance to cover. I tried to get video for a second and realized it was futile and just sat riveted watching the fastest land animal on earth pursue its quarry. The cheetah closed the gap between itself and the cheetahs in about 5 seconds and chased a small Tommy over a hill. We lost sight of it at this point. We drove over the hill and saw the cheetah carrying the Tommy in its mouth. The chase covered about 300-400 meters in less than 20 seconds, resulting in a nice meal for the cheetah.

A few days later we were once again on our way home and Ben spotted something lying behind a bush. We drove closer to investigate and discovered it was a dead impala. Not just a dead impala, but a large adult male impala. I have seen male impala stand its ground against hungry hyenas, so killing an adult male impala is no small feat. They are fast enough to outrun most predators and strong enough to fend off the smaller predators. Not so on this day.

As the impala came into full view, we saw our friendly cheetah had already eaten the entire left leg of this impala! The cheetah looked fat and seemed to be taking a break from eating. We watched for a few minutes and the cheetah decided it could pack a few more pounds of meat away.

My initial thought was that the impala may have died from some other cause, such as disease, since there was no blood on the impala, except the leg where the cheetah had eaten. After taking a closer look with the binoculars we could see puncture holes in the neck of the impala where the cheetah had clamped it canines around the throat of the recently departed impala.

Later in the evening, another researcher stopped by the kill site and said the cheetah had eaten all four legs (that is where the most muscle tissue is) and most of the high calorie internal organs. Then a young hyena, named Acadia, approached the carcass and began nibbling. After a few nibbles, Acadia pulled the carcass away from the obese cheetah. Had the cheetah not been eating for 3 straight hours, it may have put up a fight. Acadia is about 16 months old and has a long way to go before being a full-size hyena, but an impressive feat none-the-less, taking a fresh kill from a killer cheetah like this one.












Why did I eat so much?

Philomen and family!

Yesterday, Audrey, Sean, and I went on an adventure to Kilgoris, a town a few hours north of the Mara, where Philomen lives with his family (that is, when he’s not being a fantastic cook, an impeccable housekeeper, and an all-around great guy here at Serena). Two weeks ago, Philomen’s wife Judith gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl named Silandoi, so we went to visit the family and meet its newest member.

Philomen’s house is simple, well-constructed, and amazingly cool in the midst of the equatorial heat. Here in Kenya, there’s a huge emphasis on family life, so brothers, sisters, parents, and other relatives often live in very close proximity. It was hard to tell who lived on the property, who was visiting, and who just showed up to hang around. Not that it really mattered, since everyone seemed quite at home!

In the spirit of generous Kenyan hospitality, Philomen prepared and served (on a silver platter, no less!) a huge meal for us. Afterwards, he poured endless cups of steaming chai until I finally learned how to say “I’m full” in Kiswahili (for future reference, it’s "Nimeshiba"). It’s a handy phrase to use when you’re the guest in a Kenyan home…otherwise, food and drink will continue to appear in front of you until you end up in a massive food coma.

Finally, we were introduced to dozens of family members, friends, and local kids. Since “wazungu,” or foreigners, are a bit of a curiosity here, it seemed like everyone in town had showed up to meet us and wish us well. Everyone was fantastically friendly, and we finally said our gracious goodbyes after several hours of hand-shaking, chai-drinking, and picture-taking.

Oh, and, with a gift from MSU, Audrey created possibly the cutest little Spartans fan ever. In a few years, Philomen's daughter Nola may be the newest FisiCamp recruit!

Animals have brains too (Part II)

So how can you test hyenas’ intelligence?

First, we tried sitting our hyenas down and giving them IQ tests. Unfortunately, they couldn’t hold the pens, and they ended up eating the test booklets. Back to the drawing board.

Seriously though, in order to be effective, our test had to meet a few criteria. First of all, it had to be hyena-proof. It needed to be something our hyenas couldn’t destroy, consume, or drag away.

The test also had to be something that, even with their limited dexterity, hyenas could manipulate in some way to “solve.”

Finally, the test had to represent a “novel task,” which is scientist-speak for “a challenge the hyenas have never seen before.” This way, we know the hyenas aren't just relying on some skill they already have.

Luckily, clever grad student Sarah Benson-Amram came along and developed a test that meets all these criteria. Called a “puzzle box,” it’s based on an invention by psychologist E.L. Thorndike.

Essentially, it’s a big box made of rebar (and when I say “big”, I mean “BIG…” this thing weighs about 75 pounds). The box has a swinging door that closes and locks with a sliding latch. We put a piece of meat inside the box as an incentive, close and lock the door, and present it to a hyena. Their task is to figure out how to get to open the box and get to the meat inside. Just like a Rubik’s cube or Sudoku puzzle is a brainteaser for us, the puzzle box is a way to test hyenas’ problem-solving abilities.

My favorite thing about watching hyenas interact with the box is the multitude of strategies they employ. Some bite the box; others dig underneath it. A few flip and tumble the box. Some decide that an aerial view will help, so they get on top of the box and peer down. Many hyenas try the “If I lie here and stare at it long enough, it will open” strategy. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen this one work yet.

Sarah spent an amazing amount of time and effort developing the box and working out the kinks. During Sarah’s research, 9 Mara hyenas (out of 58 who tried) opened the box. On average, a hyena needed to work on the box three different times before they could open it. One smarty-pants, Snaggletooth, got so good at the task that he was able to open the box in 3 seconds; Kent, shown below, could do it in 5 seconds.

I'm now doing some work with the box here at Serena. While all this just the tip of the iceberg, it’s certainly a promising – and interesting – way to look at animals’ intelligence.

Wait your turn

Pecking orders exist in many aspects of life. Never is this clearer than when a large animal is killed in the Mara. While waiting at the Keekorok airstrip for a flight to take a friend back to Nairobi, a ranger in the Mara told me there were hyenas feeding on a giraffe that had been killed by lions a day or two earlier.

When I arrived on the scene I found about 10 hyenas coming and going from the carcass. At least 50 vultures were hanging around patiently, and at times impatiently, waiting for their chance to stick out their neck and grab a chunk of the recently departed. The hyenas at the scene were not from a clan that we study, but it was clear which hyenas were dominant. Despite the fact there were probably hundreds of kilograms of meat and bones remaining, some of the hyenas were intent on not letting their fellow hyenas get a bite or meat, or even snap off a bone. This is one of the reasons it is important for hyenas to be able to eat large amounts very quickly, you don't know who is going to chase you away before you are full.

When a low ranking hyena is attacked or chased by higher ranking hyena, the lower ranking hyenas will many times displace the aggression onto the nearby vultures. In our regular hyena observations we call this scapegoating.





Whenever I see a hyena, whether it is on TV or standing next to my car, I always think, "Do I recognize this hyena?" I didn't immediately recognize any, but I did find one hyena with an ear tag. I was unable to read the ear tag, but I am hoping a former resident of Fisi Camp may recognize the hyena picture here.




After about 20 minutes of the semi-relaxed feeding scene, a male lion came trotting in and scattered the hyenas and vultures. This male was very fat and had probably been feeding on this carcass for the past day or two. Yet, he was unwilling to let anyone else near the carcass while he stuffed the last open pocket in his vast stomach. Truly a glutton. At one point he even picked up the entire carcass and dragged it about a meter. I am not sure if this was to reinforce to all present that he was at the top of the pecking order or if he may have been showing off, just because he could. Either way, I was impressed.

Christmas dinner in the Mara

Vegetarians, turn back now. Although, since you’re reading a carnivore blog, I’m assuming you have no objection to – or even get some gratification out of – the consumption of large amounts of meat.

Forget ham, turkey, and leg of lamb…the Maasai celebrate with nyama choma. It literally means “roast meat,” and throughout their history, the Maasai have perfected this delicacy. Here’s how it happens.

Fresh meat – ours was goat, although beef is also traditional – is loaded onto spits, kind of like a giant shishkabobs. The spits are stuck into the ground and bent over a fire. As the meat roasts, the spits are turned so that all the meat is cooked to perfection…the outside is crisp and deliciously caramelized, and the inside is juicy and perfectly tender.


Once it’s done, the spit is removed from the fire and stuck in the ground, right in front of you. It’s cut off the bone with a panga (Maasai machete), and eaten straightaway. No need for plates, silverware, or extra seasoning. Napkins, while absent from our feast, are definitely a plus.


Since there’s no way anyone can actually consume this much goat in one sitting, the leftovers are wrapped up in leaves and taken home. Much more environmentally friendly than Styrofoam or aluminum foil! Just remember to keep your Maasai doggie-bag safely tucked away to avoid losing your leftovers to hungry hyenas.


Simple, traditional, delicious.

Hope your holidays are as happy – and scrumptious – as mine!

I'm out

Well I've been writing for over five months now, and by blog standards I think that means I've earned a sabbatical. So I'm signing off until May or June, when I'll return in full force. Now now, dry your tears! It won't be that long, you will make it. Until then, I'm leaving you with a sampling of some of my favorite photos that I've taken here. Actually, all these photos are from last year, because I haven't had a chance to go through this year's batch yet. So those will have to wait until next year.



















I'll catch you all on the flip side. Until then...
...do not disturb.