Brown Hyena

Hyaena Brunnea (Parahyaena Brunnea)

Click on one of the brown hyena to hear how they sound! There are two different files available, the one to the left are two male hyenas fighting, and the on to the right is a couple of hyena cubs! Thanks to Hyenagirl for the wav. files and thanks to TV6 nature for the film!

The Brown hyena is a rare and shy animal in the dry and hot parts of south Africa. During the day it rest in a den, but on the nigh it search for carrions and small animals to eat. It is a very rare, but very cute and friendly, kind of hyena.

Habits

The Brown hyena lives in deserts and have to know how to survive in these hot, harsch climates. It has a beige coat with long and rough fur, working as isolation from the cold nights in the desert. The heat of the day force the hyena to hide in a cooler place, like a small cave or a den. Since there is very little water where it lives, the hyena has to eat the thorny fruits that lives in the desert to get enough water. Even if the Brown hyena mostly lives alone, it doesn't mean that it don't like company. Sometimes a female, her cubs and some relatives can live together in one territory. These familygroups are smaller than the other hyenas packs though. When the brown hyena lives in these small packs, the special greeting-procedure isn't as complicated as the other kind of hyenas.

The adult hyenas snap each others necks when they say "hello", while the cubs snuggle each others noses (this must look really cute!)

The Brown hyena is different from its relative, the spotted hyena, because of its shorter nose. It also has a better sense of smell. This is very important, since the brown hyena believes more in scent-marks than the other hyenas do. But they still mark their territory in the same way (by dropping a smelling secretion from the anal sacs on rocks, grass etc)

Brown hyenas have strong jaws and can easilly crush bones. It has a powerful neck too!

Family life and breeding

Since most brown hyenas live alone, they don't have a single mate. The females often breed with different males that comes through her territory. After 90 days pregnancy, 2 - 4 cubs are born. They are totally helpless and blind, the eyes won't open until they are 1 month old. The cubs suck milk from their mother until they are 3 months old. After that, they can eat meat too. The mother keep her cubs out of danger, by placing her cubs in dens that she has dug in the sand. The cubs won't leave until they are 3 months old, but they won't hunt by themselves before they are 10 months old. They will stop drink milk when they are about 1 years old, but doesn't leave their mother until 3 months after that. When a female cub is sexually mature, she can either search up a new territory, or stay and have her cubs where she herself was born. Males mostly leave their former home though.

The brown hyena lick on the other hyenas marking to get more information

Food & Hunting

The hyena is perfectly suited for eating carrions. It has strong teeth and jaws that can crack big animals bones, hoofs and horns. It's also the only predator that is able to digest these parts of the carcass. It can also move over large areas. The brown hyena usually walks 30 km every night, sometimes 50 km, to get food. A brown hyena rarelly hunts its own food since its hunting skills aren't especially good after all. In the Kalahari desert, most hyenas eats the carrions of dead wildebeasts, but the hyenas near the coast eat dead sea animals, froms crabs to dead seals.

The brown hyena has to compete with a lot of different predators, and it has to get as much food as possible to its cubs etc, so it eats everything that it can find, making it an important scavenger in the desert.

A waterhole is a luxury for the brown hyena!

Did you know this about the Brown Hyena?

• During the Middle ages, people thought that the hyenas had magic powers, and could yell after people using their real names!!
• The Brown hyena is an expert on opening ostrich eggs and lick up the contains, but the spotted hyena jump at the eggs (!) to open them!
• The Hyenas is the smallest group of predators, with only 4 species.
• We know that the brown hyena can eat a lot of strange things, from tyres to belts with small metalbuckles!

More Facts about the Brown Hyena:

Size:

Body lenght: 100 - 130 cm

Tail lenght: about 17 - 30 cm

Height: 65 - 88 cm

Weight: Males up to 56 kg, but usually about 47 kg (ca 23 pounds) . Females 42 kg (about 21 pounds)

Breeding:

sexually mature: 30 months

pregnant in: 90 days

Number of cubs: 2 - 4

Lifestyle:

Habits: Lives alone. Hunts at night.

Food: carcass, small mammals, eggs, fruits and garbage.

Life lenght: Up to 13 years

Sounds like: soft barks or snarls

closely related relatives:

There are 3 more species of hyena; the Striped hyena (Hyaena Hyaena), Aardwolf (Proteles Cristatus) and Spotted hyena (Crocuta Crocuta).

Occrurrence:

South Africa. Most brown hyenas lives in the Kalahari desert and the Nambi desert, but there are also some populations in north Transvaal and south Zimbabwe. The Brown hyena can survive in many different enviroments, but it has been hunted for a long time and now it's only about 300 brown hyenas left!!!!!!

How to recognize a Brown Hyena:

Nose: Shorter than the Spotted hyenas. Has still powerful jaws, and can easilly crush bones and horns when it's eating carrions.

Sense of smell: Very good! Helps the hyena find carrions when it's looking for food on the night.

Special anal sacs: The hyena marks its territory by dropping small secretions on grass.

Coat: Long and rough. The mane is beige and easy to spot, especially when the hyena is angry and the hairs will stand on end, so the hyena looks bigger, and may scare intruders off.

Back to the Hyena Web-Archive!