Mara Mixtape Vol. 2: Greatest Hits of the Hyena

It should come as no surprise to our readers that we spend a LOT of time with hyenas. After spending months with our study subjects, we’ve all developed an acute case of “hyena on the brain.” Though my last Mara Mixtape was sadly lacking in hyena songs, rest assured we’ve come up with a song for just about every situation involving hyenas we’ve ever encountered, and I’d like to share some of them with you now. You’ll notice we’ve shifted from a classical/instrumental genre into somewhat more modern songs, which are far easier to sing acapella obnoxiously in the car when we encounter the scenarios I’ll describe below.

Who Are You? – The Who
This is probably the song we sing most often to hyenas. It's pretty self-explanatory.

Ridin’ – Chamillionaire
I’m not going to include a link to this song as most of the lyrics are very not safe for work, but suffice to say the opening line is very relevant. Emily reduced the entire car to tears of laughter last week when she burst into “They see me rollin’, they hatin’” while watching a hyena wiggling around scratching its back.

Somebody That I Used to Know – Gotye
As Emily mentioned in a recent blog post, we’ve been struggling to find the lost clan of Happy Zebra for several months now. On the rare occasions we do find an individual of Happy Zebra clan, we experience the terrible sensation of scrambling to remember the spots of a hyena we once knew like the back of our hands. Alas, that is no longer the case, so this song seemed very appropriate.

Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
Some of the male hyenas called me up with a request for this volume of my mixtape. They want to dedicate this song to the lovely hyena ladies of the Mara. Here’s to you, brown-eyed hyena girls!

Bonus track:

Fancy – Iggy Azalea

I had to include one non-hyena track on this list because it was too good to resist. Male topi have the most hilarious display behavior they use to show off for females. They hold their heads and tails as high as they can, and do a high-stepping trot like a dressage horse, usually for a female who already has a baby and is therefore totally uninterested in him. It's impossible to watch without smiling, and for me, without hearing Iggy Azalea croon about how fancy she is. 

Love Bites

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day: a day full of hearts, chocolate, roses, and lots and lots of money for Hallmark and Hershey.

In the hyena world, romance isn’t always so, well, rosy.

The spotted hyena social structure has dealt the males a tough hand. Males are lower ranking than all the females in a clan, and are frequently the targets of female aggression, often for no reason. And yet, males are the ones who initiate courtship – which includes getting unusually (read: dangerously) close to the female - hoping she’ll take kindly to them and they’ll eventually mate. To understand how hyena “flirting” works, let’s follow the hypothetical love story of Leprechaun, a male in Serena’s North territory, and his lady Waffles, the clan’s benevolent matriarch.

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It’s Valentine’s Day in the Masai Mara. Leprechaun has just had a solid breakfast of fresh Thomson’s gazelle and some scavenged buffalo foot. The sun is shining, the air is warm, and Leprechaun has made up his mind: today’s the day he’ll approach Waffles, the most beautiful hyena in the clan, and ask her to be his.

Leprechaun - isn't he cute?!

With a heart full of love, he arrives at the den, and he spots her; Waffles, reclining in the  sun as it sets fire to her ginger fur, a bit of drool hanging from her mouth, a spot of blood on her cheek...Leprechaun’s can hardly believe how perfect she is. He remains on the den’s periphery, partially hidden by tall grass, gathering his courage. He was so sure on his way over here, but now he’s faltering. The overwhelming desire to approach Waffles so strongly contradicts his instinct to be wary and flee from powerful female hyenas, he’s almost can’t decide what to do.

Waffles, what a beaut.

Nonetheless, Leprechaun finally screws his courage to the sticking place and walks towards her, although she seems to take no notice. But he’s not discouraged; in fact, he’s suddenly close enough to smell the mud she rolled in this morning, his heart pounding. Suddenly she turns her head to look at him, and as fast as he can say “whoop” Leprechaun has run away and is back where he started, among the tall grass. Frustrated with himself for approach-avoiding, he takes a few deep breathes, gathers his courage once more and tries again, taking steps towards her. But alas, he can’t seem to overcome the instinct to flee, and he runs again. Waffles seems unperturbed, which is apropos since females will ignore most flirting attempts.

This is a male, Euchre (left) and the Happy Zebra matriarch, Pike (right) demonstrating how females usually don't care about the males. Pike is completely ignoring Euchre's brave approach.

After approach-avoiding Waffles for thirty minutes to no avail, Leprechaun tries a different strategy. Crossing his forearms and lowering his body to the ground, he bows several times to his queen, hoping she’ll finally notice that he’s the most loving, dedicated, and adoring hyena in the clan.

Bowing

Waffles, meanwhile, is watching a songbird loop and dip above the den.

Leprechaun, still determined, starts to paw the ground, his entire being overflowing with awe for his beau.

Waffles has found a piece of grass particularly interesting, and is smelling it with vigor.

Leprechaun, our persistent hero, decides to approach Waffles one more time. With all the bravery he can muster, he takes several, cautious steps in her direction. Just when he thinks Waffles will never love him back, she finally sees him...and lunges and snaps at him. He tries approaching again, and she chases him for a few meters. Leprechaun can hardly believe it – she likes him back!! Every male knows that if a lady likes you back, she aggresses on you more than the other dudes (duh).

Leprechaun, absolutely buzzing with glee, approaches his love one more time, and instead of aggressing, Waffles lowers her mouth to the ground to let him know she’s restraining herself from biting or snapping at him. Seeing this, Leprechaun knows his flirting was successful, as Waffles is showing signs of being receptive to his advances. Waffles will then follow him to a secluded area where they will attempt to mate (which, even after all of this, is still not guaranteed to be successful, but that’s another story for another blog post).

After Leprechaun, Waffles will most likely mate with multiple males during this time when she’s ready to conceive. It may sound like unfaithful behavior, but Leprechaun knows, deep in his heart, that she’ll always be his lady. This was by far his best Valentine’s Day yet.

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In an alternative scenario, if Waffles was not interested in Leprechaun’s advances, she would have continued aggressing on him until he left her alone. He would walk away from the den, disheartened, with new scratches on his back and a wounded heart to match. Aren’t we so glad this wasn’t how our hypothetical story ended??

In the human world, rejection sure stings. But at least the girl doesn’t bite the boy on the face.

Source: Szykman, M., Van Horn, R.C., Engh, A.L., Boydston, E.E., & Holekamp, K.E. (2007). Courtship and mating in free-living spotted hyenas. Behavior, 144, 815-846.

Mealtime in the Mara

The thing that the Lion King doesn't tell you about the Circle of Life is that it's actually somewhat horrific to see in person. In my time here, I've seen four mammals killed by other animals. Before I came out here, I had never seen anything killed and eaten before (thank goodness), and let me tell you, it is not an easy thing to watch.

But it is a part of life and survival out here – animals have to eat to live, and living is the ultimate goal of all biological organisms. The first two kills I witnessed have already been explained on this blog – the first, a leopard killing a baby zebra, the second, a jackal killing a rabbit. And now, for your viewing pleasure, the other two Mara Meals I've seen:

NOTE: These, as I mentioned before, are hard to watch, and caution should be exercised if you are squeamish/really love baby gazelles/have a terrible fear of ants.

This is Firefly, one of our South clan hyenas, eating a baby Thomson's gazelle. We were at the den when we saw her run by with it in her mouth, obviously delighted to have procured her meal, and we followed her to where she finally settled down to eat it, devouring the entire animal, bones and all, in literally five minutes. It was incredible – hard to believe even as it was happening in front of us. I have known for a while now that hyenas can eat 1/3 of their body weight in one sitting, but it never really hit home to me how fast and efficient that truly is until I saw this.

That mass of ants in this very shaky video I took is devouring a bat they likely knocked out of a tree. The bat is still alive as this is happening – we could hear it squeaking and you can see it flinch in the last few seconds of the video. This is undoubtedly the most horrible thing I have seen out here. We saw the bat fluttering about on the ground but the sheer volume of the ants overwhelmed it and it was covered in no time at all. At camp, we live in mild terror of siafu (the biting ants in the video), who can live in colonies of up to 50 million individuals and like to unexpectedly swarm and invade our tents. This incident just solidified our fear – all that was left of the bat come morning was a perfectly cleaned bat skeleton. Thankfully for us, siafu are usually simple enough to avoid as their typical mode of transport is in carefully regulated columns that we can easily step over. 

Mealtime in the Mara can be a disgusting thing to witness, but I am still glad that I have the opportunity to see these things and share them with all of you. 

Enjoy your dinners! ;)

The Mara's Mighty Hunters

While driving home from obs one fine January evening, we were startled by a flurry of motion in the road – a black-backed jackal in hot pursuit of a springhare. We stopped the car to watch the lightning-fast chase. One wrong step from the hare gave the jackal the opening he needed; in the blink of an eye he’d scooped up his prize in his jaws and trotted off into the grass to enjoy his freshly-caught dinner.

The thrill of watching the hunt got me wondering about the other hunters who inhabit the Mara. Almost every prey animal in this vast grassland is built for incredible speed, so how do the predators who live here manage to keep up? Hunting strategies vary widely by species, region and prey, but I’ll cover some of the most common techniques for the Mara’s greatest hunters.

I’ll start with the critter that sparked my interest: the black-backed jackal. Jackals are opportunistic omnivores, which essentially means they will eat anything they can get their jaws around. This covers everything from insects, reptiles and rodents, all the way up to fully grown impala. For smaller prey, like rodents and the unfortunate hare whose demise we witnessed, jackals use their impressive agility to catch and subdue their food. For larger prey like gazelles and impala, jackals switch to a harrying technique to compensate for their small size – harassing an animal until it’s too tired to fight back, then taking it down with bites to the throat or stomach. Though they don’t hunt nearly as much as the obligate carnivores (animals which are only capable of eating meat) of the Mara, jackals have a hunting prowess all out of proportion with their size.

Like the jackal, leopards have a size disadvantage to many of the species they choose to prey upon. Weighing in at only 66-176lbs, leopards are outweighed by some of the larger antelopes that make up their diet. They make up for this with unparalleled stealth and jaw strength. Leopards stalk their prey by night, choosing to pounce at close range from the ground or dropping from trees onto their unsuspecting target. As we were lucky enough to witness, they can kill with blinding speed, using powerful jaws to crush their prey’s throat. Unfortunately, leopards are frequent victims of prey-theft by lions and hyenas due to their small size. To prevent this, they commonly stash carcasses in trees. If you’re wondering how much strength that would take, try dragging something that weighs more than you do backwards up a tree using only your mouth, and let me know how it goes.

Don’t tell the hyenas, but cheetahs are my personal favorite Mara hunter. Unmatched in elegance and, of course, in speed, the cheetah has definitely earned its place as the world’s fastest land mammal. Different sources give different numbers, but most experts I could find agree these lovely cats can break at least 60mph in a dead sprint. Everything about the cheetah is built for speed. Their spine is extra flexible to allow their legs to reach huge distances per stride. Their claws have lost the ability to retract in favor of acting like sprinter’s cleats to give them greater grip on the ground. Even their tails are adapted for use as a counterbalance, allowing cheetahs to cancel forward momentum in order to change directions more quickly in the heat of a chase. All of these finely-tuned adaptations pay off: cheetahs have a nearly unheard-of hunting success rate of 50%. The much-lauded lion has a success rate of only 17-19% when hunting alone, or around 30% when hunting in groups. However, there are drawbacks to their speedy build. Cheetahs are comparatively small and fragile, which mean as many as half of their successful kills are stolen by lions and hyenas.

They may not be the most successful, but lions are certainly the biggest and the baddest of the Mara’s hunters. Some males in East Africa have reached sizes of around 390lbs. Their impressive bulk means they can’t keep up with agile antelope in a test of speed, so they must rely on stealth instead. Lions hunting on their own will stalk their prey, taking advantage of the Mara’s tall grasses to hide them until they are within pouncing distance. Lions hunting in groups can get a little fancier, and employ tactics where one lion lies in wait while others drive the prey into an ambush. Though they have the reputation as one of the world’s mightiest hunters, lions actually prefer to scavenge whenever possible. They use their strength and numbers to shoo other predators off their kills and take the food for themselves. Typically, only a group of hyenas are capable of defending themselves at carcasses when lions come calling.

Last, but certainly not least, our own beloved spotted hyenas. Hyenas are possibly the world’s most infamous scavengers and carcass thieves, but it is a reputation that is only partially deserved. Hyenas do indeed scavenge and steal, but they are excellent hunters in their own right, killing up to 90% of their own food. Rather than employing speed and stealth like most of the Mara’s predators, hyenas rely on their powers of endurance. Hyenas are built to run at a steady lope for many kilometers, wearing their prey down until it is incapable of running any farther before eating it alive.

References:

Holekamp, K. E., Smale, L., Berg, R. and Cooper, S. M. (1997), Hunting rates and hunting success in the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). Journal of Zoology, 242: 1–15. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.1997.tb02925.x

Kamler, J., Foght, J., & Collins, K. Single black‐backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) kills adult impala (Aepyceros melampus). African Journal of Ecology 09/2009; 48(3):847 - 848. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2028.2009.01173.x

http://www.sanbi.org/creature/black-backed-jackal

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/leopard/

http://www.cheetah.co.za/c_info.html

https://lionalert.org/page/predatory-behaviour

Serena's Lost Clan

Anyone born and bred in Virginia or North Carolina, as I am, knows the tale of the Lost Colony of Roanoke forwards and backwards. It’s the true story of colonial settlers who arrived in 1587, then disappeared only three years later, leaving no trace but the word “Croatoan” etched into a gatepost. Even now, there are only theories as to what happened to the 118 men, women, and children all those years ago.

ILLUSTRATION BY NORTH WIND PICTURE ARCHIVES/ALAMY

So what does a lost colony have to do with hyenas? Well, you could say that some of our hyenas have disappeared without a trace, and I couldn't help but draw parallels between them and the vanished colonists.

The saga began when our Happy Zebra hyenas moved dens in early December. Usually, when the clans change dens, it’s only a few days before we figure out where they’ve relocated. But after a week, two weeks, then three weeks had passed, we realized we might not find their new den for a long while. Now, almost two months later, I can say with confidence we have no idea where they are.

While historians are studying antique maps and archaeological sites to discover the fate of the Roanoke colonists, we hyena researchers are depending on radio-collar tracking, our knowledge (albeit, sometimes limited knowledge) of the territory, and strategic driving to find our clan. Best case scenario: we happen upon the active den one day while our on obs. 

Current scenario: after two months of searching, tracking, and hoping, we still haven’t found the den. But we have seen Pike the matriarch, Cosby, and a few sub-adults and older cubs in a particular field many times over. You could say this is our version of the “Croatoan” clue – an indication of where they might be, but alas, no luck yet. It’s a pretty big field to search.  

Just a section of the area we think they might be hiding. 

But all hope isn’t lost yet! We’re optimistic that we’ll either find the den soon, or they’ll move back to a spot we know. Until then, we’ll keep looking, hoping to solve our own Lost Clan mystery. Who knows? Maybe there’s even an “HZ” carved into an acacia tree somewhere....

One thing is for sure: we can't wait to see these goofy faces again!

Rummy!!

Cami taking the best kind of nap: an upside-down one. 

Jolly Roger rocking the mohawk. 

Leopard Luck

The Maasai Mara supports an enormous amount of animals – for those of us from the suburban areas of the United States, where the wildlife pretty much consists of squirrels and the occasional deer, the sheer number of antelope we see on any given day is absurd. But what is the most shocking is the number of carnivores that live here. From dwarf mongooses (the smallest carnivore in East Africa, less than 14 inches long) to the famous lion, carnivores are absolutely everywhere. But the least common carnivores to see, of course, are the big cats. And of the big cats, the leopard is the most elusive.

Leopards are amazing animals – beautifully spotted, powerful, sporting a face that simultaneously makes us awwww in adoration and shudder with well-founded fear. They are stealthy, stalking their prey to within 10 feet before pouncing and killing with a stranglehold to the throat. They are impossibly strong – able to drag a carcass over twice their weight up into trees to protect it from other scavenging carnivores like lions. Leopards can vanish into grass half their height and reemerge over 60 feet away with none the wiser. These animals quite literally cannot be seen if they don't want to be seen.

That is what makes it so profoundly exciting that four days ago, we saw a leopard casually sitting on a prominent mound in our driveway, lazily flicking his tail as we drove home from our evening obs session.

Erin's family was visiting, and her brother John casually asked, "Is that a leopard on that mound there?" I looked, ready to declare it a lion or a hyena or literally anything else but a leopard, but sure enough, there it was! We were thrilled, snapping pictures and watching as it stood up, stretched, and began to walk up the driveway toward us. It passed within a few feet of the car and headed up the road.

As we were thinking about following it, a Mara miracle occurred – another leopard walked out of the tall grass behind the mound.

At first we mistook it for a cheetah, because this leopard was a bit smaller, and more gracile than the other. This led us to believe that the second leopard was a female, and the first a male.

To explain how ridiculous this is – leopards are typically encountered alone unless it is a mother with her cubs. Leopards are solitary, and males and females keep apart until mating, at which point they will tolerate each other for as brief a time as it takes to mate. Then they go their separate ways. So what we were seeing was the prelude to what might have turned out to be leopards mating. The female followed the male up the road (and we followed too, trying not to let them out of our sight) and up onto a grassy hill.

There, they spent about 10 minutes eyeing each other and growling softly in the backs of their throats. We weren't sure which one was growling, or if both were, but it was a sound I had never heard before and will likely never hear again. After the female circled the male several more times, the male snarled and chased the female away over another hill and out of sight, leaving all of us breathless and laughing as the dangerous-leopards-not-30-feet-from-us tension melted away.

We were so glad to be witness to such a rarely-seen event, and share the experience with Erin's family. Incredibly, I have now officially seen more leopards than I have seen cheetahs, servals, or caracals (other felids – cat species – commonly seen here in the Mara). I hope this leopard luck continues throughout the rest of my time here! Their spotted, whiskery faces and intense eyes have bewitched me; I cannot wait to see more!

Take the stage, cubs!

          Each morning at 0530 and every evening at 1700 we fisi campers venture out into the splendor that is the Masai Mara to conduct obs, or observation sessions, within our study territories. In a nutshell, we roam the grassy lands in search of hyenas for roughly three hours in order to collect different types of data. Half of an obs session is spent exploring the entire territory with the hopes of locating some of our study hyenas to see where they are, who they are with, and what they are doing, and the other half is spent at a communal den observing den-dwelling cubs, their mothers, and any other hyenas within the clan that are present at these social hotspots. 

          A communal den is where young cubs first begin to learn their ranks through early aggressive and submissive interactions beginning even before they emerge their natal dens, as well as through near constant socialization with other cubs, sub-adults, and adult mothers. When I say a communal den is a ‘social hotspot’ what I mean is that during these portions of an obs session you really get to observe the complexities of spotted hyena social structure by witnessing nursing aggressions, play behavior, interactions between pesky sub-adults and defensive mothers, less frequently seen hyenas who drop in to say hello and greet others, and immigrant males who remain at a distance or make their boldness known by approaching the dens. Side note: A greeting is a common interaction we observe between hyenas where two hyenas will each lift their legs and sniff the other’s genitalia in order to facilitate social associations and connections with other clan members. 

          Communal dens often consist of multiple den holes, which lead to complications when attempting to observe behavior. These dens are then referred to as den complexes, which consist of the multiple den holes and what we’ve dubbed in the field as the den’s ‘stage’. This is where we are able to most easily and clearly observe what is happening during a communal den session. Here in Talek West, our study hyenas experience near daily experiences with tourist vehicles and have overtime taken to denning deeper and deeper within dense shrubbery. As you can imagine, this makes observations challenging, as the hyenas will wander in and out of sight amongst the ever difficult to navigate orange-leaf croton bushes. As frustrating as this can be, the stage is where all the magic happens.

The stage of Resurrection Main Den with some of the cubs wandering and stand looking at the car. 

          As a thespian I’ve always appreciated the performing arts, so when I learned that the field researchers had colloquially been referring to spotted hyena behavior as a soap opera, I was eager to see why. Having subsequently learned that the den stage existed, I quickly learned why the stage was called that – oh, the hyena dramatics never cease. For me, it has been the cubs that have taken starring roles in these daily productions of the Talek West soap. In one of my former posts I blogged about the egg and milk trials I’d begun to conduct for one of our graduate students, Eli Strauss. Further investigating the process by which cubs learn their ranks, Eli is researching when and how young cubs do so through egg and milk trials provoking agonistic (aggressive and submissive) interactions. It has been quite the pleasure to take an active role in this data collection for Eli. 

Meet Hemingways.
Here he was one lucky cub, having a powdered milk source and trial all to himself - a solo, you could say.

          The stars of my trials have been one group of young cubs of the same cohort. A mix of high and low-rankers, these cubs have heightened my interest as I’ve conducted trials throughout the early months of their lives to nowadays as they each approach graduation age, which is when they will slowly begin to explore further and further away from the communal den with their mother, taking graduation walks and learning the ropes of surviving in the territory. Witnessing the development of their individuality has been an absolute dream as I’m personally consumed by ponderings of individual behavior within social populations. In particular, three pairs of litter mates have captivated my research interests, undoubtedly, but have also found a special place in my heart as I’ve watched them develop from tiny black cubs to now older cubs on the verge of graduating.

Catching some z's before a trial, it didn't take long after I deployed the egg source to arouse
Kerri Strug and Tamika Catchings from their ever-so-adorable lackadaisical state. 

          The ‘cast members’ of the trials (in order from highest to lowest ranking) are Joule (JOUL), Kilometer (KILO), Hilton (HITO), Hemingways (HEMI), Tamika Catchings (TAMI), and Kerri Strug (SRG). Each has displayed individual differences in behavior throughout the trials. JOUL, the now youngest daughter of the matriarch of the clan, Buenos Aires (BUAR), is not only the highest-ranking cub but is also the second highest-ranking hyena of the entire clan and she undeniably knows this is her place within the hierarchy. She is the scrappiest of the bunch, asserting her rank in every trial and making it known that she is not to be messed with, especially when it comes to the milk! 

Here we have Joule glaring at the car during a milk trial.
Shortly after this she aggresses on the two cubs beside her for a better feeding position. 

          Her subordinate littermate, KILO, has a bit of a different profile. He too, seemingly, knows where he stands in the clan, but spends more time by himself, wandering the perimeter of a trial watching the others battle it out for an eggshell or a lick of the powdered milk. Together though, the two of them are a forced to be reckoned with! They’ve asserted their rank through what are known as coalitions, aggressing together onto all of the other cubs, sub-adults, and even adult mothers through breathtaking duets of lunges, snaps, and bites. 

During an early morning egg trial, Kilometer seemed more content basking in the
sun's rays and watching the other cubs duke it out than taking part in the action.

          Next, HEMI and HITO are actually the niece and nephew of JOUL and KILO. These two stick together. They’re always joining and leaving a trial together, feeding together, and aggressing together through coalitions when necessary. A lover of eggs, HEMI doesn’t let another cub or even sub-adult near his egg during a trial. Being the smallest of the group, HEMI was formerly known as “tiny” before we knew who his mother was, and has never let his size get in the way. 

Hemingways is a bold little one, approaching our car close enough to reach out and touch him (which we don't do of course). This makes snapping irresistible head shots of him just too easy! What's not to love?

Hilton was in control of this egg trial, consuming nearly all of the egg source before the other cubs could snatch some. 

          Near the bottom of the clan, TAMI and SRG are actually the oldest of these cubs and seem to tolerate the aggressive behavior of their younger, significantly higher-ranking cub counterparts, to a certain degree of course. It seems they know their place is beneath the others but still successfully counterattack when they need to. Both feisty in their own right, they’ve seemed to be far more aggressive during milk trials and certainly defend themselves often. 

(Top: Tamika Catchings; Bottom: Kerri Strug)
 I often refer to these two as the ethereal and effervescent silver-haired duo.
We've been finding them wandering further and further from the den and always together.
They are the only hyenas I've seen with their coloration - true silvery beauties. 

          As the egg and milk trials ‘productions’ continue, it has been beyond entertaining and inspiring to witness these cubs’ behavior and I am constantly yearning to observe them. 

Here’s to you cubs, the stage is all yours! 

An unidentified black cub (meaning we don't know who her/his mother is) stand and looks at the car.
Perhaps we have some future 'talent' for more egg and milk trials? 

          Have any questions about cubs in particular, or about hyenas in general? How about a question you’ve been itching to ask about Kenya or the Mara? Post your question(s) below and I’ll make sure to respond to them as soon as possible. Asante sana and take care! 

-- Jared P. Grimmer --

All Photos Property of Jared P. Grimmer