Hyenas whose habits no one knows. Why do hyenas have a bad reputation? Myths and facts. Photo of a hyena in the wild
There is a place in Africa where it is especially interesting to watch hyenas. This is the city of Harar in Ethiopia. At night, hyenas walk right along its medieval streets. We knew about this and yet experienced some strange feeling when we first saw hyenas near the houses. They collected kitchen waste and bones. Sometimes hyenas accepted handouts even from the hands of people. On one of the streets, Jane nudged me with her elbow. There was a sleeping woman on the sidewalk.
She wouldn't be so careless among the hyenas of the Serengeti.
People and hyenas get along well in this city. True, one has to appease predators all year round and toss them gifts such as the carcasses of the dead. But the hyenas keep the streets of Harar clean, and in the conditions of the African heat, this is very important.
Yet most Africans dislike hyenas, and with good reason. Too often newspapers report about attacks of predators on villages, about death of people.
To make it easier to study the life of hyenas, we marked them. From a special gun, a dart with a drug flew at the hyena, and the animal could not move for some time. Approaching the motionless hyena, we attached small triangles to its ears, clearly visible from a distance. In total, we tagged fifty animals, which helped us a lot in our work.
As it turned out, at the bottom of the crater, whose area is 250 square kilometers, there are about 420 adult hyenas, united in several groups. These groups, which we have called clans, divided the crater into eight hunting zones, the boundaries of which were strictly guarded by their inhabitants. And the hyenas were not at all embarrassed that the conditional line sometimes passed through completely flat terrain.
On one of the moonlit nights, having entered a flock of hyenas on an all-terrain vehicle, we spied how the animals guard their territory from the encroachments of neighboring clans. Our path started from rocky ledges where zebras often come to rub their sides on them. We named this place the Rubbing Zebra Rock Clan. Here the hyenas attacked the antelope, but only a kilometer and a half later they managed to knock it to the ground. We were surprised to hear suddenly the alarming cry of one of the hyenas. All the beasts of the Rubbing Zebra Rock Clan jumped away from their prey and stared into the darkness. The aliens were rapidly approaching them. At first there were only four, then five, six. The tails of the hyenas were belligerently raised up, the nape bristled menacingly. The carcass of the killed antelope was no longer of interest to anyone.
A fierce fight broke out. The hyenas circled our all-terrain vehicle like some kind of monstrous wheel. It was a real hurricane. From everywhere rushed a growl, a howl. Fangs flashed with fire. I hurriedly switched the buttons of the tape recorder, trying to record the report of the clan battle on video. But he soon abandoned his intention: it is useless to try to describe this picture ...
Now there were already about thirty animals at the scene of the fight. In each clan, the hyenas huddled close together, and as before, their tails stuck out militantly.
Look look! - I was delighted, pointing to one of the hyenas of the alien clan. She has our mark.
Jane clicked her camera and hurriedly leafed through her notebook.
“This is an old female,” she said, “of the Lakeside clan.
So here's the thing! The hyenas of the Rubbing Zebra Rock Clan began hunting in their own territory, but became addicted to chasing the antelope and overtook the prey in the hunting grounds of the Lakeside Clan hyenas. The owners did not tolerate the violation of the unwritten law of their ancestors and fell upon the unlucky hunters.
The conflict lasted fifteen minutes. At first, the advantage was on the side of the Clan of the Rubbing Zebra Rocks, but gradually the owners pressed the uninvited guests more and more, and, finally, the violators of the laws of the prairies, licking their wounds on the go, disappeared in the cold light of the moon.
We managed to learn a lot of interesting things about hyenas. It turned out that females play a predominant role in their clans. This is extremely rare in predators. Females, as a rule, remain in the territory of their clan forever. Males are not so loyal to their clan and sometimes move to neighboring ones. One of the males we marked even belonged to two clans at the same time!
The cubs live in one common heap, but each female takes care of only her own babies. The dens for hyenas are large burrows in the open plain. Sometimes the animals dig them themselves, sometimes they occupy the holes of other animals. In one of these shelters, the females drag their cubs, carefully watching so that none of the males dares to approach them. The dramatic incident with little Solomon was for us a living reminder of the frequent cases of cannibalism - hyena mothers are forced to protect their offspring from the fangs of their father.
Everything we have written about hyenas applies to hyenas in Ngorongoro, but I'm not sure if this is true for hyenas in general. For example, in the Serengeti, herds of wildebeest, zebras and gazelles roam continuously, passing hundreds of kilometers. In addition, in some areas these animals, which serve as a source of subsistence for hyenas, accumulate in masses, in others they are not shown at all for a long time. Many questions remain unanswered.
What and where?
Beast with duck beak
An amazing mammal, whose jaws are dressed with a horn cover, reproduces unusually: it lays eggs, incubates them, and feeds the young with milk.
In the quiet rivers of Australia, he feeds like ducks, choosing various invertebrates from the silt. But platypuses in Australia have become very rare animals and. are protected by law. They are trying to catch and settle in places suitable for them, but unexpected obstacles have met here. It turned out that platypuses are very nervous animals and a change of scenery, meeting with new objects and phenomena has a detrimental effect on them. The animals "fell into a panic", begin to rush about and die in three to four hours.
And who is this hedgehog?
At first glance, the echidna really resembles our hedgehog in size and needle cover (by the way, its name reflects only the latter feature and does not at all indicate any "harmful", "malicious" properties of it).
In fact, the echidna is very far from the hedgehog. Together with the platypus, it represents an ancient, almost extinct group of egg-laying mammals. The echidna lives in Australia and New Guinea. She carries her eggs in a pouch on her stomach. The mammary glands also open there, and after hatching, the cubs feed on milk. During her travels, the mother echidna carries her young in her pouch. Echidna feeds on ants. Her elongated jaws are devoid of teeth, and a long sticky tongue, just like that of an anteater, helps her successfully send ants into her mouth, whose dwellings she destroys with long and strong claws of her front paws.
Another Australian
Everyone knows such marsupials as kangaroos, but not everyone imagines that a giant kangaroo, more than 2 meters tall, gives birth to a walnut-sized cub! Such a "baby" is only able to crawl along the female's belly to the opening of the bag and then, hanging on the nipple, receive milk in a "forced" order, which is periodically sprayed into his mouth by squeezing special muscles. Already fully formed kangaroos use their mother's bag for a long time in case of danger and during long transitions.
Now many species of kangaroos have long been gone, they were exterminated, and the rest are not very guarded. In the country of marsupials, they are primarily interested in sheep breeding and wheat. Farmers need pasture, and kangaroos are getting in the way.
Most of all goes to a rare species of kangaroo - Euro. They live on the same pastures as sheep, and most importantly, they use the same watering places. And water in Australian pastures is the greatest value. And the livestock breeders declared a real war on the euro.
To save this rare species, scientists are trying to prove to livestock breeders that it is harmless. Zoologists have been studying Euro life for a long time. Several hundred animals were ringed. Automatic devices monitored waterholes day and night to find out how much water the kangaroos were drinking.
As a result of research, it was possible to determine: euros can do without water for a long time, like camels. They are well adapted to the harsh conditions of life in arid areas. At a temperature of 37 °, animals do not need water at all, they have enough moisture formed in the body. And in even greater heat, at a temperature of 45 °, euro kangaroos hide in holes that they dig for themselves, fall into some kind of hibernation and for some time can do not only without water, but also without food.
In addition, it turned out that some species of kangaroo are able, thanks to a special structure of the kidneys, to use concentrated salt solutions in plant sap and even ... drink sea water.
Rice. 76. This "baby" feels great in a mother-kangaroo pouch
With similar studies, zoologists managed to save the life of kangaroos, proving their harmlessness to agriculture in many parts of Australia.
By book: B. Rzhevsky. Mosaic of Living Riddles M., Ed. "Soviet Russia", 1968. J. E. Kinnear etc. - The ability of a kangaroo to drink sea water. - "Compar. Biochem and Physiol", 1968, 25, No. 3.
And his South American relative
The boy, breathing heavily, stopped and handed me the string. At its other end dangled a small black animal with pink paws, a pink tail and beautiful dark eyes, over which eyebrows were raised in creamy fur, as if in constant surprise. It was a lunar boil - a mouse opossum. It was necessary to remove the twine with which he was tied across his stomach. He opened his mouth and with the usual "peacefulness" of possums, hissed at me, but I simply grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and began to untie the twine. Then I noticed on his belly, between the hind legs, an oblong sausage-shaped swelling and decided that this must be some kind of internal injury from the noose. The true cause of this swelling was revealed to me only later. I began to examine the animal and, feeling it, found an oblong incision in the "tumor". Pulling apart the folds of skin, I saw a pocket, and in it trembling pink cubs. Enraged by such an unceremonious encroachment on the safety of her kindergarten, the mother let out a loud, rattling scream like a tin can, a cry of rage. After showing the cubs to Bob and counting them (there were three of them, each half the size of my little finger), I put the angry mother in the cage, after which she immediately sat on her hind legs and examined her bag with the greatest care, smoothing the fur that I had disheveled and grumbling angrily. Then she ate a banana, curled up into a ball and fell asleep.
J. Durrell. Three tickets to Adventure. M., Publishing House, "Thought", 1969.
Beast or fir cone?
The lizard, or pangrlin, is one of the most amazing mammals. Its body, according to the nature of the cover and color, resembles a spruce cone - it is dressed in strong horny scales. Lizards are nocturnal, feed on insects and small vertebrates; disturbed curl up and cover the hairy belly with a scaly tail. These ancient animals live in Africa and India.
All my life upside down
From the very beginning, so many slanders were erected on sloths, like no other animal on the South American continent. They wrote about them that they are lazy, stupid, ugly, slow, ugly, that their unusual physique is for them a source of constant torment, and protea and so on.
But here is what the famous trapper J. Darrell reports about his meetings with sloths.
Here is how it was. We were sitting at tea, when suddenly a man burst into the room with a bag over his shoulders. He untied the sack and, with a straight face, emptied the contents at our feet. A large, extremely angry two-toed sloth fell out of the bag. Like a small bear, he lay on the floor with his mouth open, hissing and waving his paws. He was about the size of a large terrier and was covered all over with coarse brown hair, disheveled and unkempt in appearance. His paws, very long and slender for his body, ended in long, sharp claws. His head was very much like a bear's, and his small, round, reddish eyes looked very angrily. But the most surprising thing about him was his mouth, equipped with large sharp teeth of the most unpleasant yellowish hue.
Soon we acquired a different kind of sloth, which is found in Guyana, the three-toed sloth. The animals were so different from each other that at first glance it seemed as if they had nothing in common with each other. They were about the same size, only the three-toed had a surprisingly small round head for its body with tiny eyes, nose and mouth.
And yet, if the two-toed shaggy brown hair was rare, then the three-toed was covered with thick ash-gray wool of amazing texture, reminiscent of dry moss. Each sloth hair has a rough, grooved surface, and it has vegetation - some kind of algae - that gives the hair a greenish tint. It is the same plant that one sees on rotten hedges in England, but in the damp damp atmosphere of the tropics it grows luxuriantly on wool and gives the sloth an excellent protective color. This is a one-of-a-kind case of a symbiosis between a plant and a mammal. His legs were so hairy that they seemed twice as powerful as those of a two-toed, when in fact they were much weaker.
When I was able to observe two Sloths of different species at the same time, I found that the habits of the animals were as different as their appearance. So, for example, a two-toed loves to sleep, clinging to a bough, in a position characteristic of sloths - laying his head on his chest between his front paws; the three-fingered one preferred to settle in a fork - clung to one branch with its paws, and rested its back on another. The two-toed, as I have already said, felt rather helpless on the ground, while the three-toed could stand on its paws and, putting its massive claws inside, crawl on half-bent legs, like a deep old man broken by rheumatism. True, he moved slowly and uncertainly, but still he could move from place to place. But when climbing trees, everything was the opposite: the two-toed moved quickly and nimbly, and the three-toed showed slowness and uncertainty, each time trying the bough with his paw, before entrusting him with the weight of his body. The two-toed was distinguished by savagery and treachery - his relative, even if he had just been caught, did not inspire any fear.
J. Durrell. Three tickets to Adventure. M., ed. "Thought", 1969.
Without opening your mouth...
The large anteater is a relative of the sloth and a descendant of the giant edentulous that once lived in South America. His ancestors reached the size of an elephant, and he is only a little over a meter. The long muzzle with fused jaws ends in a tiny hole in the toothless mouth, from which a rope-like tongue is ejected with lightning speed. The anteater destroys anthills and termite mounds with powerful claws of the front paws, launches its long (up to 50 cm) and sticky tongue there, and then draws insects and their larvae stuck to it into the mouth. Despite living in the tropics, the anteater is covered with thick hair - it protects it from angry ants.
The large anteater is a fast and strong animal. He barely manages to catch up on a horse, and lassoed, he easily drags two strong men behind him. The anteater hunting scene with a lasso is beautifully described by J. Durrell in his book Three Tickets to Adventure (1969).
Longest-eared among foxes
Fenech is a charming little fox of the deserts of northern Africa. Huge ears betray the way it uses when searching for food - insects, lizards, small birds and rodents. After sleeping a day in its hole, the fennec fox goes hunting after sunset. Completely invisible due to its protective coloration and inaudibly stepping with soft paws with pubescent soles, the fennec fox, thanks to its incredibly fine hearing, does not miss a single rustle. Whether a goat moves in a crevice of a rock or a bird in a nest, everything serves as a signal to the fox. A big jump - and a satisfied fennec fox devours a fat grasshopper or crunches the bones of a bird. Fenech tolerates captivity very well and for years pleases the observer with his tricks.
Armed with ... arrows
The large rodent porcupine (it reaches 70 cm in length and 15 kg of weight) is found in Africa, Asia Minor, and India; in the Soviet Union - in eastern Transcaucasia and some regions of Central Asia.
This is a nocturnal animal that feeds on succulent grassy vegetation and often harms vegetable gardens. Its most remarkable feature is the long, brown-and-white-colored, pointed needles that cover its back and tail. In irritation or fright, the porcupine strongly "ruffles up" and, contracting the special subcutaneous muscles, shakes its arms. At the same time, some needles can break off and fly off, causing the enemy not only mechanical damage. Apparently, the porcupine skin secretions remaining on the surface of the needle are poisonous, and the injection site hurts and bleeds long after the needle is removed.
Only a few survived
The bison, an American relative of our bison, is one of those animals that man thoughtlessly and senselessly brought to almost complete extinction. Before Europeans arrived in America, millions of bison grazed the vast prairies. White hunters ruthlessly exterminated bison, using only the skin. The last blow to the buffalo was dealt by the construction of the transcontinental railroad, whose passengers, for the sake of pleasure, shot the remaining herds from the windows of the cars, not caring in the least about the further use of the dead and the fate of the wounded animals. Now bison are preserved only in a few places declared reservations.
Asian wild horse
The Przewalski's horse is the last representative of a fairly large group of wild horses that inhabited the steppes of Eurasia in prehistoric times and were used by man to breed numerous breeds of domestic horses.
The Przhevalsky horse was discovered by this great traveler in Central Asia, where at that time it was still numerous. At the beginning of this century, a group of Przhevalsky's horses "was delivered to the Askania-Nova steppe reserve, where they successfully acclimatized.
The Askania-Nova Reserve has become a source of supply for zoos with these animals, but more often zoos keep hybrids of the Przewalski's horse with a domestic horse. In the wild, Przewalski's horse has almost disappeared, although there have been recent reports of it. that small groups of this wonderful animal met in the most remote corners of the desert of Dzungaria.
About those who have two languages
On the island of Madagascar, in Africa and India, there are animals that are very similar to monkeys, but with strange heads. In some it resembles the head of a fox, in others it resembles a dog, and in some it even resembles the head of an owl. These are the famous lemurs, or semi-monkeys. Among them are very small, tiny semi-monkeys - no more than twelve centimeters. But there are also large ones, about a meter tall, for example, the indri lemur.
Rice. 84. Lemur-potto - one of those who have two languages, unusual eyes and very tenacious "handles"
But what is especially remarkable in lemurs is the language. They actually have two languages - upper and lower. With a lower tongue with a pointed tip, the lemur cleans the teeth of the lower jaw after eating.
B. Rzhevsky. Zoo king's mistake. M., ed. "Children's World", 1963.
orange armadillos
The first copy of our collection, caught by a resident of Puerto Casado, appeared in our house forty-eight hours after our arrival. The door was wide open; in front of her stood a small, thin Indian in tattered clothes, holding in one hand a crumpled straw hat, and in the other a round object that looked very much like a soccer ball. It was a three-banded armadillo, which I had long dreamed of meeting. Curled up, it resembled a small melon in its shape and size. On one side of the ball there were three "belts", from which the animal got its name - three rows of horny plates, separated by thin layers of pinkish-gray skin, which served as hinges. On the other half of the ball, the head and tail of the animal came together. They were covered with bumpy armored tiles and resembled isosceles acute triangles in shape. When the armadillo folded up, both triangles fit snugly against each other, blocking access to the soft, vulnerable parts of the animal's body. The entire armored surface of the armadillo was a light amber color and seemed to be a skillfully made mosaic. After explaining in detail to my listeners the features of the external structure of the armadillo, I laid it on the floor, and we sat for a while in silence, waiting for it to turn around. For a few minutes he remained motionless, then began to twitch and twitch. A small gap appeared between the triangles of the tail and head, then it widened and a small muzzle appeared, similar to a pig snout. After that, the battleship quickly and deftly turned around; it seemed to burst like some kind of huge kidney, and for a moment we saw a pink wrinkled belly covered with dirty white hair, small pink paws and a sad piglet muzzle with round hatched black eyes. Then he rolled over, and now only the tips of his paws and a few tufts of hair were visible from under the armor. The tail, sticking out from under its hump-shaped carapace, resembled a knobby, spiked battle club of the ancients. From the other end protruded the animal's head, adorned with a triangular cap of armor and two tiny donkey ears.
For a moment the battleship stood motionless, nervously twitching its nose and ears, then decided to set off. His small paws began to move, he fingered them so quickly that they merged into one indistinct spot under the shell, his claws clattered loudly on the cement floor. The body remained completely motionless. All this made the armadillo look not like a living creature, but like some kind of unusual clockwork toy. This similarity became even clearer when the ironclad ran into the wall, apparently without noticing it.
All textbooks say that the three-banded armadillo feeds on insects and caterpillars; so I decided to give the captured animals their favorite food at first, and then gradually accustom them to substitutes. Sparing no time, we collected a sickening collection of insects and offered them to the armadillos. But instead of greedily pouncing on the worms, caterpillars and beetles, which we recruited with such difficulty, the armadillos became frightened and began to shy away from them with obvious disgust. After this failure, I tried to switch the armadillos to their usual diet in captivity - minced meat with milk. They drank some milk, but did not touch the meat. It was outrageous. They behaved like this for three days, and I began to seriously fear that they would become weak from starvation and I would have to let them go. Armadillos became the misfortune of our lives, we were constantly overshadowed by new ideas, and we rushed to the cage with the next offering, only to see once again how the animals turn away in disgust from the brought food. In the end, by pure chance, I managed to concoct a hodgepodge that won them over. It consisted of mashed bananas, milk, minced meat, raw eggs and raw brains. All together it looked sickening, but the armadillos really liked the mess. During feeding hours, they rushed headlong to the bowl, surrounded it from all sides, pushing each other away, and stuck their noses into the swill, sneezing loudly, dousing the neighbors with a fountain of spray.
J. Durrell. Under the canopy of a drunken forest. M., Geografgiz, 1963.
pollinating animals
On the plains of Australia, in the scrub, known here as a scraper, there are small bushes with very strange flowers that grow, as if along the edges of a bowl, arranged in a circle one after another. The bottom of the "bowl" is dotted with scales and filled with a sweet liquid. It smells like cream, which has begun to turn a little sour. "Cream" is poured into the "bowl" flowers growing along its edges.
This plant is called Dryandra. Kangaroos come with their muzzle stuck in the "bowl", drink "creamy" nectar, moreover, they dirty (unconsciously, of course) their nose with pollen. Then they jump to the inflorescences of another dryander, lick the juice there too and leave pollen on the flowers. This is how they cross-pollinate these shrubs. It is interesting that dryandra inflorescences grow at a height most convenient for kangaroos, and their dimensions are such that this animal may well stick its muzzle into them.
In the homeland of kangaroos in Australia, marsupial flying squirrels, or flying couscous, like our flying squirrels, flutter from tree to tree on leathery "parachutes" stretched between the front and hind legs. Flying couscous eat both insects and tree buds, but their main food is nectar, which they suck from eucalyptus flowers. For these habits, marsupial flying squirrels are called "sugar squirrels" in Australia. The pygmy flying couscous, or marsupial mouse, and marsupial dormouse are also great nectar lovers and visit eucalyptus and banksia flowers.
Of the non-flying animals, the narrow-winged heel walker, or honey mouse, best of all extracts flower honey. He lives in western Australia. A heel walker is about the size of a large mouse. The animal deftly climbs the branches of trees. It has a narrow elongated muzzle: it easily sticks into the sockets of the flowers. And if the flower is too small even for him. muzzle, then the heel walker licks nectar out of it with a long and thin tongue with a notch along the edges. The recesses in the notch capture the juice from the day of the flower, like buckets of a belt excavator water from a river.
It is more difficult for a flightless animal to reach a flower than for a winged one. Therefore, birds and insects as pollinators are unmatched. Of the animals, only bats and flying foxes can give them some competition.
All plants pollinated by bats bloom only at night (after all, bats sleep during the day), the smell of the flowers is musty, somewhat sour, but it attracts bats. Like ornithophiles, these are large, strong flowers, always with a wide bell-shaped entrance. They grow, as a rule, at the ends of the longest branches, or directly on the trunks, below the crown, so that pollinators can easily reach them.
Bats pollinate some species of baobabs, cotton, aloe, bananas, kigelia, dope and other tropical plants.
I. Akimushkin. And the crocodile has friends. M., ed. "Young Guard", 1964.
Three Humble Giants: Kodiak Bear, White Rhino and Mountain Gorilla
In Western Europe, only in 1898 for the first time it became known about the existence of the largest predator in the world - a huge brown bear that lives in Kamchatka, in Northeast China and Sakhalin. His relative, the Kodiak bear, lives on the other side of the Bering Strait, in Alaska. This bear is a real monster. Its length is more than 3 meters and weight - more than 700 kilograms. It used to be thought that the largest bear is the grizzly, or gray bear, living in North America. Meanwhile, it is much smaller than a kodiak: its length is no more than 2 meters and its weight is 500 kilograms.
Only in 1900 did it become known that the largest land animal after the African elephant existed in such an "explored" area, where no one could suspect of its presence. This is the Sudanese white rhinoceros. It is a giant among four-legged animals. Its length is about 5 meters, height is more than 2 meters. It is the largest of the rhinos: its weight is often more than two tons, and the horn reaches the height of a short person - 1 meter 57 centimeters!
In 1900, Captain A. Gibbone brought the skull of a white rhinoceros from the Lado region on the Upper Nile. Before that, it was believed that white rhinos are found only three thousand kilometers from here: the tax of Africa, in Bechuanaland. And suddenly - a white rhino in Sudan!
Later, in the same region of the Upper Nile, Major Powell-Catton found several more skulls. The scientist Lydekker described this northern species under the name "Catton's white rhinoceros". Catton's rhinoceros inhabits a fairly wide area from the northeast of Ouele to Sudan 1 .
1 (Until 1950, there was not a single specimen of this giant mammal in the zoological gardens of the world. Now two young white rhinos live in the Antwerp Zoological Garden.)
It is very strange that such a huge animal was not noticed for a long time in an area that was considered to be completely explored!
The discovery of the largest rhinoceros was followed by the discovery of the largest of the apes: the mountain gorilla. It was discovered only in 1901. Captain Bering first brought from the Kivu region (Central Africa) the skin of this giant four-armed. Before that, only one species of gorilla was known to science, the so-called coastal gorilla. It is found in the forests of the western coast of tropical Africa, from Gabon and Cameroon to the Congo.
Coastal gorillas are no more than 1 meter 80 centimeters. The mountain gorilla is a real giant even among its by no means small counterparts, great apes. She is about 2 meters tall. The girth of the chest is 1 meter 70 centimeters, and the circumference of the biceps is 65 cm. The weight of this gorilla reaches 200 and even 250 kilograms.
Bernard Euvelmans. In the footsteps of unknown animals. M., ed. "Children's World", 1961.
Giants of giants
The largest animals that have ever lived and are now living on planet Earth are whales.
Imagine that a whale was flying on its tail. His head will be next to the roof of a ten-story building. 33 meters - this is the growth of the sea giant, blue or blue whale. Its weight is 150 tons. To balance such a giant, two thousand people or 40 buses would have to be asked to climb the other scale.
One hundred and fifty tons is a world record among whales. Usually blue whales are smaller. More modest and size. Due to fishing, the whales do not have time to grow, and their size has now decreased to 24 meters. Fin whales reach 25 and even 27 meters, but just like the blue whale, fishing has reduced their growth by an average of 6 meters. The sizes of other species are even smaller - from 20 to 1 meter.
V. Belkovich, S. Kleinenberg, A. Yablokov. Our friend is a dolphin. M., ed. "Young Guard", 1967.
Elephants live nearby
A completely new phenomenon of recent years is the so-called "tourist elephants". These are usually solitary animals, addicted to visiting tourist hotels and camps in national parks. Such animals become more and more annoying over time, because, despite all the prohibitions, they receive handouts from tourists. One of the elephants, named Carly, approached the tourist hotel during dinner very close to the dining room windows and looked enviously at the table. Once he pressed on the frame so hard that he knocked out three panes at once with his short tusks and, not at all afraid of noise and ringing, deftly thrust his trunk into the hole formed and began to rummage around the table. And a few days later he pestered the director of the restaurant, wanting to take away some food from him.
Another elephant was nicknamed Dump Nellie because she, along with her baby elephant Billy, got into the habit of rummaging through garbage pails. When one of the guests decided to take a picture of her cub from the veranda at close range, she rushed to the attack. Any innovation has an irritating effect on elephants.
Elephants rarely communicate with cars, but they cannot stand their horns.
In 1965, in South Africa, a rather impressive group of elephants crossed a paved highway leading through the Kruger National Park. The animals were in no hurry, and therefore the road was completely blocked for 15 minutes: several cars had already gathered near the "live barrier". But when one of the minicars began to honk impatiently, a huge male, blocking the crossing of the road between elephants and calves, turned around menacingly, stuck out his ears (a sign of irritation), trumpeted and with quick steps resolutely headed towards the disturber of the peace. The giant hooked the front buffer with his tusks and trunk and threw the car up. But this seemed to him not enough. Having overturned the car with its wheels, he moved it off the road into a ditch, dragging it five meters to the side. Fortunately, the passengers inside escaped with minor bruises.
African elephants have practically no enemies among animals. Even such animals as rhinos, hippos and lions will certainly be the first to give way to an adult elephant if they meet him anywhere on a narrow path. And yet, in the Kruger National Park, the elephants were afraid ... of a dog that they could not kill in any way (the dog barked, dodged and grabbed the elephants by the legs).
Why were the elephants afraid of the little dog? Perhaps this is due to the fear of these animals before unfamiliar things? After all, a dog is an animal completely outlandish for an elephant. And elephants are just as distrustful as horses.
B. Grzimek. Elephants live nearby. - "Nature", 1967, No. 3.
Hyenas whose habits no one knows
Four years ago, starting my work in Africa, I, like most other specialists, believed that hyenas feed on carrion and that the very life of these animals depends on the hunting success of more daring wild animals. True, it seemed to me incredible that many hyenas could live on only leftovers from the food of lions. And our observations confirmed the correctness of my doubts.
One dark evening, outside the windows of our wooden hut, we heard the hyena's howl for the first time - a few distant howls of whuu-uurs, high at the beginning and low at the end, mixed with a soft grunt.
Nine hyenas wandered a hundred meters from the hut, huddled together in a tight flock and holding their tails up. They didn't seem to pay any attention to us. Our Land Rover (off-road passenger car) caught up with the pack. Turning off the headlights, we calmly accompanied the silent beasts.
The area began to rise sharply. At this time, the hyenas rushed forward, as if attacking the trail of the desired prey. The sound of many hooves reached our ears. Dozens of zebras galloped down the hillside.
The zebra chase began. Hyenas, arched, rushed behind a small herd. Here is one of the zebras lagged behind the herd to protect him from his pursuers.
It was a stallion determined to protect its females and foals. But mares and foals did not use the tactical maneuver of a stallion to escape. Left without a leader, the zebras swirled in place, filling the night with high-pitched barking cries.
Finally, one of the hyenas slipped past the stallion and attacked the mare. We saw how the fangs flashed against the background of the moon stuck into the croup of the victim. Zebra tried to defend herself, but another hyena, followed by another, jumped at her, emerging silently from the darkness. The battle lasted only three minutes. And now a whole crowd of predators - at least 30 hyenas - completed the massacre.
So we were convinced that hyenas get their own food. Soon we also knew their basic hunting habits. Zebra hyenas are pursued by a large flock, wildebeest are hunted by two or even alone. And only when the prey is already dumped, other predators come running from somewhere. Hyenas pursue gazelles only alone. At the same time, each produces a gazelle for itself in its own way.
There is a place in Africa where it is especially interesting to watch hyenas. This is the city of Harar in Ethiopia. At night, hyenas walk right along its medieval streets. We knew about this and yet experienced some strange feeling when we first saw hyenas near the houses. They collected kitchen waste and bones. Sometimes hyenas accepted handouts even from the hands of people.
Hyenas keep the streets of Harar clean, which is very important in the African heat.
Yet most Africans dislike hyenas, and with good reason. Too often newspapers report about attacks of predators on villages, about death of people.
G. Crook. Hyenas whose habits no one knows. - "Young Naturalist", 1969, No. 3.
Horses of the sun that resemble a tiger
There are still quite a few common zebras in Africa. But, oddly enough, we know little about them: they are herbivorous, graze in herds, often in collaboration with other steppe animals, playful, jump, kick, bite kindly. Lions are their main enemies.
When it rains, zebras linger in the steppe, and then in the Serengeti there are tens of thousands of them - huge herds. But a few days pass, and the herds disintegrate. Now only small groups of animals are jumping across the steppe. Some - we called them a family - include a stallion and several mares with foals, others - only stallions.
How long do these groups last?
We were to conduct long-term observations of tagged zebras.
It was a lot of work, but we were happy because we personally met 600 zebras. And they didn't regret it. Observations gave an unexpected result: adult animals remained in families until the end of their lives. And only very old or sick males gave way to young ones. No one has yet observed such an order in mammals. When the young females were 15 months old, they were taken away from the family by foreign males. The female and the patron who stole her created a new family or became members of an already established one.
Young stallions left their families voluntarily. Maybe because the mother began to care less about them and devoted more time to their younger brothers and sisters. Or maybe the young stallions went to their peers - playmates.
Adult stallions usually lived together for several years, but the friendship ended as soon as the bachelor became the head of the family. Now he carefully watched his former comrades so that they did not come close to his family. However, the head of the family was obliged to greet the stallions that were nearby. The ritual of greeting was quite solemn. Friends rubbed their noses, sniffed each other, and at parting, each made a small jump. This ceremony was almost unknown to zoologists, because in zoos, for fear that animals in battle can injure each other, several stallions are not kept in one enclosure.
G. Klingel. Sun horses. - "Young Naturalist", 1969, No. 8.
For a long time no one could find a kind word for hyenas. They are treacherous and cowardly; they greedily torment carrion, laugh like demons, and they also know how to change sex, becoming either females or males.
Ernest Hemingway, who traveled a lot in Africa and was well versed in the habits of animals, knew about hyenas only that they are "hermaphrodites that defile the dead."
From ancient times to the present day, the same chilling stories have been told about hyenas. They were copied from book to book, but no one bothered to check them. Hyenas have not really interested anyone for a long time.
Only in 1984, at the University of Berkeley (California), a center for the study of individuals was opened. Now there lives a colony of forty spotted hyenas(Crocuta crocuta), the most misunderstood animal in the world.
Who eats a lion for dinner?
Indeed, spotted hyenas are very different from other predatory animals. For example, only in hyenas, females are larger and more massive than males. Their constitution determines the life of the pack: matriarchy reigns here. In this feminist world, it makes no sense for males to bicker, life partners are much stronger and angrier than them, but you can’t call them insidious at the same time.
“Hyenas are the most caring mothers among predators,” says Professor Stephen Glickman, who initiated the study of hyenas at Berkeley.
Unlike lionesses, hyenas drive males away from their prey, allowing only babies to approach it at first. In addition, these quivering mothers feed their cubs with milk for almost 20 months.
Many myths will be dispelled by impartial observation of hyenas. Have the Death Eaters fallen? Just not enterprising hunters, driving large prey with the whole flock. They eat carrion only when they are hungry.
Cowardly? Among predators, only hyenas are ready to fight back the "king of beasts". With devilish laughter, they attack the lions if they are going to take their prey from them, for example, a defeated zebra, which the pack did not get easily.
Hyenas themselves attack old lions, finishing with them in a matter of minutes. A coward dares to attack only a hare.
As for their hermaphrodism, this is one of the most common ridiculous myths. Hyenas are bisexual, although it is really difficult to determine their gender. This is due to the fact that the genitals of females outwardly almost do not differ from male ones. Their labia form a sac-like fold resembling the scrotum, the clitoris is similar in size to the penis, only by examining its structure, one can understand that this is a female organ.
Why are hyenas so unusual? At first, Glickman and his colleagues suggested that the blood of females is very high in testosterone, a male sex hormone that helps form muscles and hair in males, and also encourages them to aggressive behavior. However, with this hormone in hyenas, everything was normal. But in pregnant females, its content suddenly increased.
The reason for the unusual structure of the hyena (the size of females and morphological and sexual similarity with males) turned out to be a hormone called androstenedione, which, under the influence of an enzyme, is able to turn into a female hormone - estrogen - or testosterone, a male hormone.
As Glickman found, in pregnant hyenas, androstenedione, penetrating the placenta, is converted into testosterone. In all other mammals, including humans, on the contrary, in estrogen.
A special enzyme stimulates the appearance of estrogen, which is not very active in the body of hyenas. Thus, so much testosterone is produced in the placenta that the fetus is formed with pronounced masculine (male) characteristics, regardless of gender.
bloodthirsty kids
Because of their strange anatomy, childbirth in hyenas is very difficult and often ends in the death of the cubs. At the University of Berkeley, out of every seven cubs, only three survive; the rest die from lack of oxygen. In the wild, the mother herself often does not survive. Female hyenas most often die because lions attack them during childbirth.
striped hyena
Two, and sometimes more babies are born, weighing up to two kilograms. The appearance of the crumbs is charming: button eyes and black fluffy fur. But more furious little ones are hard to imagine. A few minutes after their birth, tiny hyenas are already rushing at each other, trying to kill their brothers.
“These are the only mammals that are born with sharp fangs and incisors,” says Glickman. “In addition, unlike cats, hyenas are born sighted - and immediately see only enemies around them.”
They bite, dodge, gnaw and tear each other's backs. Their contractions are not at all like the hustle and bustle of kittens trying to get to their mother's nipples first. Hyena cubs want to be not the first, but the only ones, and the struggle between them is not for life, but for death. About a quarter of the cubs die as soon as they are born.
But the passion for murderous fights gradually disappears from them. In the first weeks of life, the content of testosterone in the blood of young animals is steadily declining. The survivors of these feuds reconcile with each other. It is curious that all their lives female hyenas behave more aggressively than males. Why did nature turn these spotted beauties into some kind of "superman"?
Lawrence Frank proposed a hypothesis. Throughout their history - and it has 25 million years - hyenas have learned to eat prey together - the whole flock. For kids, such a division of carcasses is discrimination. While the adults, pushing them back, tormented the meat, the little hyenas were left with only leftovers, mostly gnawed bones.
From such a meager diet, they starved and soon died. Nature favored those females who, throwing themselves at other hyenas, cleared a place near the prey for their babies. The more aggressive the hyena behaved, the more chances her offspring had to survive. Warlike hyena cubs could eat meat along with adults.
The ancient world of hyenas
In ancient times, two types of hyenas were known: striped and spotted, and the first, an inhabitant of North Africa and Western Asia, was, of course, more familiar to people than the spotted one living south of the Sahara. However, ancient writers did not distinguish between types of hyenas. So, Aristotle, as well as Arnobius and Cassius Felix, Latin writers, natives of Africa, mention the hyena without touching on its species differences.
Since ancient times, people have been amazed by the dexterity and perseverance with which hyenas tore up graves, so they were afraid of them, like evil demons. They were considered werewolves. A hyena seen in a dream meant a witch. In various parts of Africa, it was believed that sorcerers turn into hyenas at night. Until recently, the Arabs buried the head of a killed hyena, fearing it.
In Egypt, hyenas were hated and persecuted. This "devourer of carrion" to the depths of her soul insulted the inhabitants of the Nile valley, who were accustomed to honor the bodies of the dead. On the Theban frescoes you can see scenes of hunting with dogs for animals that lived in the wastewater treatment deserts: gazelles, hares, hyenas.
The Talmud described the outflow of an evil spirit from a hyena as follows: “When the male hyena is seven years old, he takes on the appearance of a bat; after another seven years, it turns into another bat called arpad; after another seven years, it sprouts nettles; after another seven years, thorns, and, finally, an evil spirit emerges from it.
One of the church fathers, Jerome, who lived in Palestine for a long time, writes about it with obvious hostility, recalling how hyenas and jackals scurry in hordes on the ruins of ancient cities, instilling fear in the souls of random travelers.
Since time immemorial, many different legends have been composed about hyenas. As already mentioned, they were credited with hermaphrodism and the ability to change their gender. It was said with a shudder that the hyena, imitating the voice of a person, lures children out and then tears them apart. It was said that the hyena exterminates dogs. The Libyans put prickly collars on dogs to protect them from hyenas.
In Africa, the hyena can be a common pet like a dog
Pliny wrote that the hyena looks like a cross between a dog and a wolf and will gnaw through any object with its teeth, and immediately digest the swallowed food in the womb. In addition, Pliny gave an extensive one - a whole page! - a list of potions that can be prepared from the skin, liver, brain and other organs of the hyena. So, the liver helped with eye diseases. Galen, Caelius, Oribasius, Alexander of Trallsky, Theodore Prisk also wrote about this.
Hyena skin has long been credited with magical properties. Going to sow, the peasants often wrapped a basket of seeds with a piece of this skin. It was believed that this protects the crop from hail.
“At the full moon, the hyena turns its back to the light, so that its shadow falls on the dogs. Bewitched by the shadow, they become numb, unable to utter a sound; the hyenas carry them off and devour them.”
The special dislike of hyenas for dogs was noted by Aristotle and Pliny. Many authors also assured that any person, whether a child, a woman or a man, easily becomes the prey of a hyena if she manages to catch him sleeping.
The day was fading away. The gray April sky still shone over the Ngorongoro savannah. Here, inside the ring of the high crater of an ancient volcano, lies a world of valleys, hills and bushes hidden from prying eyes - a real paradise for animals and zoologists. Afraid to move, my wife and I froze in anticipation. Herds of zebras and wildebeest moved around us in the gathering darkness. And suddenly this whole peaceful picture was broken by some kind of explosion of rage. We saw how a tall bull broke out of the herd of antelopes and rushed at a gallop. I took a look at the binoculars. An exciting picture of the chase opened up to my eyes - a hyena was rapidly rushing after the antelope literally on the heels. The animals ran, almost touching each other. It was evident that the squat hyena manages to keep up with its long-legged prey without much difficulty. Time after time, the predator jumped high, grabbing the fleeing wildebeest either by the tail or by the legs.
Look! Jane exclaimed. - More hyenas!
Indeed, new predators were approaching the running pair from all sides. Two, three, five ... Putting all their strength into running, they resolutely rushed to the wildebeest, who was running away towards a small lake. The antelope has already run three kilometers. She's tired. The hyenas quickly overtook her.
The last desperate effort, and the bull jumped out onto the shore of the lake, and after a few seconds disappeared under the water. The hyenas stopped dead in their tracks. And in a moment everything calmed down, only in the place where the antelope drowned, circles were visible on the water.
I was instructed to study the lifestyle of the spotted hyena. Of the three species known to science, they are more widespread than others. By the way, these predators, which live in almost all of Africa, are distant relatives not so much of dogs as of cats.
Four years ago, starting my work in Africa, I, like most other specialists, believed that hyenas feed on carrion and that the very life of these animals depends on the hunting success of more daring wild animals. True, it seemed to me incredible that many hyenas could live on only leftovers from the food of lions. And our observations confirmed the correctness of my doubts.
One dark evening, outside the windows of our wooden hut, we heard the hyena's howl for the first time - a few distant howls of whuu-uurs, high at the beginning and low at the end, mixed with a soft grunt. For me, this cry is one of the liveliest and most captivating sounds of Africa. At that time, I listened to him until the last note froze somewhere in the distance. Then another hyena howled.
There must be several of them,” Jane said.
"Let's go and see," I suggested.
Nine hyenas wandered a hundred meters from the hut, huddled together in a tight flock and holding their tails up. They didn't seem to pay any attention to us. Our Land Rover caught up with the pack. Turning off the headlights, we calmly accompanied the silent beasts.
Today they are not interested in antelopes, I remarked.
Jane nodded.
“There are hundreds of them here, but the hyenas don’t even look at them.
We rode next to the pack for an hour. At one point, the hyenas crossed a deep ravine with rocky steep slopes, and we had to make a big circle in order to rejoin the predators, who had huddled in a dense flock. The area began to rise sharply. And at this time the hyenas rushed forward, as if attacking the trail of the desired prey. The sound of many hooves reached our ears. Dozens of zebras galloped down the hillside. The Land Rover suddenly shook violently, jumping high and nearly overturning. I clung to the steering wheel with all my might, trying to quickly turn the wheels on a steep slope.
The zebra chase began. Hyenas, arched, rushed behind a small herd. Here is one of the zebras lagged behind the herd to protect him from his pursuers.
This stallion,” Jane quickly prepared her camera, “decided to protect his females and foals.
The stallion on the run jumped from side to side, trying to drive away the animals that ran too close with a blow of teeth or hooves. But mares and foals did not use the tactical maneuver of a stallion to escape. Left without a leader, the zebras swirled in place, filling the night with their high-pitched barking cries.
Finally, one of the hyenas slipped past the stallion and attacked the mare. We saw how the fangs flashed against the background of the moon stuck into the croup of the victim. Zebra tried to defend herself, but another hyena, followed by another, jumped at her, emerging silently from the darkness. The battle lasted only three minutes. And now a whole crowd of predators - at least thirty hyenas - completed the massacre. An hour later, peace was restored on the hillside. How long?
So we were convinced that hyenas get their own food. Soon we also knew their basic hunting habits. Zebra hyenas are pursued by a large flock, wildebeest are hunted by two or even alone. And only when the prey is already dumped, other predators come running from somewhere. Hyenas pursue gazelles only alone. At the same time, each produces a gazelle for itself in its own way.
And yet, maybe everything that we saw was not so much the rule as the exception to it? We received the answer to our thoughts on one of the sleepless nights in the Serengeti. The frantic pursuit of wildebeest hyenas ended successfully. More and more spotted predators ran to the prey. The noise grew louder - the growling, howling and laughter of hyenas. Suddenly, the hyena's alarm signal stood out clearly in the general chorus - several soft, short cries, similar to grunting. At that moment, silence hung in the air. From nearby trees, bathed in bright moonlight, a tawny lioness approached the feasting beasts. A moment later, alarming cries rushed from all sides - the hyenas rushed in all directions. The lioness perched on the abandoned carcass.
Well, I said, that's all. There were hyenas without meat.
But, to my surprise, the hyenas again gathered in a flock. It was evident from everything that they were very angry: the tails of the animals were raised high up, the hair on the scruff of the neck stood on end. Trying to come from behind, the hyenas crept up to the lioness, who began to devour the antelope. Only from the strong blows of the tail, whistling through the air, one could guess that the lioness had noticed them. When the hyenas got too close, a deep growl came out of the lioness's mouth, and the spotted beasts recoiled.
But only for a moment. One of the hyenas rushed forward, and its fangs sank into the robber's thigh! The lioness soared up in a frantic leap, but the terrible swing of her paw was in vain - deadly claws cut the air. The Queen of Beasts was late: the hyenas had already jumped back and were again spinning behind. They clung to the ground and roared, huddled in a close flock. And once again one of the hyenas jumped, and again her fangs reached the goal. A minute later we saw the queen of beasts running away from the hyenas. The hyenas took their prey from her!
However, the triumph of the hyenas was short-lived. Soon two lions appeared, males with black manes. They trotted to the place of the feast and took possession of the carcass. This time there was no fight. All the hyenas lay down in a circle in the grass, keeping their eyes on the mighty beasts.
Hours passed. Dawn has come. About an hour after sunrise, a tourist bus appeared at the feast site. Bouncing on the bumps, he approached, and camera lenses gleamed in his windows.
Look, the hyenas are waiting for the leftovers after the lion! - shouted one of the tourists, leaning out almost to the waist. Will she ever know that everything was wrong?
Later we found that in the Serengeti, lions get their own food. However, in the Ngorongoro Crater, the king of beasts hardly bothers to hunt, hyenas provide him with prey.
The easiest way to learn the habits of animals is to constantly observe them. And so we immediately set off as soon as we heard that the employees of the reserve had found a lost hyena cub. So in our house there was a tiny round puppy, who was born only a week ago. This pitch-black creature was still unable to move on its own and whimpered endlessly. We named him Solomon. Soon he became a delightful animal, and our life turned into a continuous alternation of delights and curses.
Solomon imagined that our house was his own lair, and considered me and Jane to be the senior members of his family. More than anything, he loved to ride and admire wild animals.
Our pet did not succeed in life without adventures. One dark, moonless night, I heard the piercing, plaintive cry of a hyena. He jumped to his feet in fear. Solomon! He liked to wander around the house at night. Often, screaming, he ran away from some pursuers. This time, Solomon apparently moved away from the house towards the thickets.
Grabbing an electric torch, I jumped out the window and raced through a thicket of thorny bushes. Solomon screamed incessantly. I found him two hundred meters from the house. Solomon's small body, stained with saliva, hung from the mouth of a hyena, whose jaws held his throat in a death grip. At the sight of such a wild spectacle, which was a frantically screaming man dressed in striped pajamas, rushing in huge leaps with fire in his hands, the predator abandoned her prey and fled.
Solomon's throat was deeply torn, his trachea was bitten through and his jaw was broken. It took a lot of fiddling with him to completely cure him. Poor Solomon! The civilized world of man was full of temptations for him. He willingly sneaked into the home of the chief park ranger and ate the butter on his table a few minutes before breakfast. And how he loved cheese! Solomon also adored human company. But people did not always put up with the presence of a small hyena, and, in the end, we were forced to send Solomon to the Edinburgh Zoo. Our one year old hyena was too tame to return to free life. I hope that Solomon still gets a piece of cheese and butter.
To be continued.
P.S. What else are British scientists talking about: that hunting for hyenas, the so-called hunting safari, has recently become very popular in Africa. It is possible that it was such a hunt that inspired the Ukrainian creators to name the safari 431 m for their new revolver. By the way, I wonder if it would be possible to kill an African hyena like that?
T but th on the I a life G And e n s
For a long time no one could find a kind word for hyenas. They are treacherous and cowardly; they greedily torment carrion, laugh like demons, and they also know how to change sex, becoming either females or males.
Ernest Hemingway, who traveled a lot in Africa and was well versed in the habits of animals, knew about hyenas only that they are "hermaphrodites that defile the dead."
From ancient times to the present day, the same chilling stories have been told about hyenas. They were copied from book to book, but no one bothered to check them. Hyenas have not really interested anyone for a long time.
Only in 1984, at the University of Berkeley (California), a center for the study of individuals was opened. Now there lives a colony of forty spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta), the most misunderstood animals in the world.
Indeed, spotted hyenas are very different from other predatory animals. For example, only in hyenas, females are larger and more massive than males. Their constitution determines the life of the pack; matriarchy reigns here. In this feminist world, it makes no sense for males to bicker, life partners are much stronger and angrier than them, but you can’t call them insidious at the same time.
“Hyenas are the most caring mothers among predators,” says Professor Stephen Glickman, who initiated the study of hyenas at Berkeley. Unlike lionesses, hyenas drive males away from their prey, allowing only babies to approach it at first. In addition, these quivering mothers breastfeed their cubs for almost 20 months.
Many myths will be dispelled by impartial observation of hyenas. Have the Death Eaters fallen? Just not - enterprising hunters, driving large prey with the whole flock. They eat carrion only in times of famine. Cowardly? Among predators, only hyenas are ready to fight back the "king of beasts". With devilish laughter 
they attack lions if they are going to take their prey from them, for example, a defeated zebra, which the pack did not get easily
The hyenas themselves attack the old lions, killing them in a matter of minutes. The coward dares to attack only the hare.
As for their hermaphrodism, this is one of the most common ridiculous myths. Hyenas are bisexual, although it is really difficult to determine their gender. This is due to the fact that the genitals of females look almost the same as male ones. Their labia form a sac-like fold resembling the scrotum, the clitoris is similar in size to the penis, only by examining its structure, one can understand that this is a female organ.
Why are hyenas so unusual? At first, Glickman and his colleagues suggested that the blood of females was very high in testosterone, a male sex hormone that helps form muscle and hair in males, and also encourages them to aggressive behavior. However, with this hormone in hyenas, everything was normal. But in pregnant females, its content suddenly increased.
The reason for the unusual structure of the hyena (the size of females and morphological and sexual similarity with males) was a hormone called androstenedione, which, under the influence of enzymes, is able to turn into a female hormone - estrogen - or testosterone - a male hormone. As Glickman found, in pregnant hyenas, androstenedione, penetrating the placenta, is converted into testosterone. In all other mammals, including humans, on the contrary, in estrogen. A special enzyme stimulates the appearance of estrogen, which is not very active in the body of hyenas. Thus, so much testosterone is produced in the placenta that the fetus is formed with pronounced masculine (male) characteristics and females with unusual sexual characteristics, regardless of gender.
Because of their strange anatomy, childbirth in hyenas is very difficult and often ends in the death of the cub. At Berkeley, out of every seven cubs, only three survive; the rest die from lack of oxygen. In the wild, the mother herself often does not survive. Female hyenas most often die because lions attack them during childbirth.
Two, and sometimes more babies are born, weighing up to two kilograms. The appearance of the crumbs is charming: button eyes and black fluffy fur. But more furious little ones are hard to imagine. A few minutes after their birth, tiny hyenas are already rushing at each other, trying to kill their brothers. “These are the only mammals that are born with sharp fangs and incisors,” says Glickman. “In addition, unlike cats, hyenas are born sighted - and immediately see only enemies around them.”
They bite, dodge, gnaw and tear each other's backs. Their contractions are not at all like the hustle and bustle of kittens trying to get to their mother's nipples first. Hyena cubs want to be not the first, but the only ones, and the struggle between them is not for life, but for death. About a quarter of the cubs die as soon as they are born.
But the passion for murderous fights gradually disappears from them. In the first weeks of life, the testosterone content in the blood of young animals is steadily declining. The survivors of these civil strife reconcile with each other. It is curious that all their lives female hyenas behave more aggressively than males. Why did nature turn these spotted beauties into some kind of "superman"?
Lawrence Frank proposed a hypothesis. Throughout their history - and it has 25 million years - hyenas have learned to eat prey together - the whole flock. For kids, such a division of carcasses is discrimination. While the adults, pushing them back, tormented the meat, the little hyenas were left with only leftovers, mostly gnawed bones.
From such a meager diet, they starved and soon died. Nature favored those females who, throwing themselves at other hyenas, cleared a place near the prey for their babies. The more aggressive the hyena behaved, the more chances her offspring had to survive. Warlike hyena cubs could eat meat along with adults.
In ancient times, two types of hyenas were known: striped and spotted, and the first, an inhabitant of North Africa and Western Asia, was, of course, more familiar to people than the spotted one living south of the Sahara. However, ancient writers did not distinguish between types of hyenas. So, Aristotle, as well as Arnobius and Cassius Felix, Latin writers, natives of Africa, mention the hyena without touching on its species differences.
Since ancient times, people have been amazed by the dexterity and perseverance with which hyenas tore up graves, so they were afraid of them, like evil demons. They were considered werewolves. A hyena seen in a dream meant a witch. In various parts of Africa, it was believed that sorcerers turn into hyenas at night. Until recently, the Arabs buried the head of a killed hyena, fearing it.
In Egypt, hyenas were hated and persecuted. This devourer fell to the depths of her soul insulted the inhabitants of the Nile valley, who were accustomed to honor the bodies of the dead. On Theban frescoes you can see scenes of hunting with dogs for animals that lived in the surrounding deserts: gazelles, hares, hyenas.
The Talmud described the outflow of an evil spirit from a hyena as follows: “When the male hyena is seven years old, he takes on the appearance of a bat; after another seven years, it turns into another bat, called arpad; after another seven years, it sprouts nettles; after another seven years - a thorn, and, finally, an evil spirit appears from it.
One of the church fathers, Jerome, who lived in Palestine for a long time, writes about it with obvious hostility, recalling how hyenas and jackals scurry in hordes on the ruins of ancient cities, instilling fear in the souls of random travelers.
Since time immemorial, many different legends have been composed about hyenas. As already mentioned, they were credited with hermaphrodism and the ability to change their gender. It was said with a shudder that the hyena, imitating the voice of a person, lures children out and then tears them apart. It was said that the hyena exterminates dogs. The Libyans put prickly collars on dogs to protect them from hyenas.
Pliny wrote that the hyena looks like a cross between a dog and a wolf and will gnaw through any object with its teeth, and immediately digest the swallowed food in the womb. In addition, Pliny gave an extensive - - a whole page! - a list of potions that can be prepared from the skin, liver, brain and other organs of the hyena. So, the liver helped with eye diseases. Galen, Caelius, Oribasius, Alexander of Trallsky, Theodore Prisk also wrote about this.
Hyena skin has long been credited with magical properties. Going to sow, the peasants often wrapped a basket of seeds with a piece of this skin. It was believed that this protects the crop from hail.
Elian, the author of Motley Tales and On the Nature of Animals, reported that at night hyenas strangle sleeping people and devour dogs. “At the full moon, the hyena turns its back to the light, so that its shadow falls on the dogs. Bewitched by the shadow, they become numb, unable to utter a sound; the hyenas carry them off and devour them.” The special dislike of hyenas for dogs was noted by Aristotle and Pliny. Many authors also assured that any person, whether a child, a woman or a man, easily becomes the prey of a hyena if she manages to catch him sleeping.
The hyena rarely appeared in the circus arena. In the time of Antoninus Pius (II century AD), she was once released along with other outlandish animals. In 202, during the reign of Septimius Severus, 700 bison, ostriches, bears, lions, spotted hyenas and other animals were killed at games that lasted a whole week. Finally, on the days of the famous celebrations in honor of the millennium of Rome, Emperor Philip the Arab ordered ten hyenas to be released into the arena.
Only in recent years has the physiology of hyenas become clear. Their hormonal mechanism is unusual for mammals. It was he who interested the physicians. After all, some women's diseases make us remember hyenas. For example, "polycystic ovarian syndrome". With this disease, the woman's body produces large doses of androgens - male sex hormones. This often leads to infertility. “Perhaps the troubles of these women began even before birth,” notes the American physician Ned Place, “when they, like the embryos of hyenas, took testosterone baths in their mothers.”
A similar picture is observed in women suffering from an excess of an enzyme that converts cholesterol into cortisone. This leads to an excess of testosterone, and the girls stop developing breasts; they are in danger of infertility. “Interestingly, female hyenas also circulate elevated levels of male hormones, but they don’t have any problems,” Plas emphasizes.
Researchers believe that unraveling the mysteries of the hyena's body will open up new possibilities in medicine, in particular, in the treatment of infertility.