[1] It is the smallest of the bone-cracking hyenas and retains many primitive viverrid-like characteristics lost in larger species,[4] having a smaller and less specialised skull.

[9] A nocturnal animal, the striped hyena typically only emerges in complete darkness, and is quick to return to its lair before sunrise.

[13] Ancient Greeks knew it as γλάνος (glános) and ύαινα (húaina) and were familiar with it from the Aegean coast of Asia Minor.

[26] The skull is entirely typical of the genus, having a very high sagittal crest, a shortened facial region and an inflated frontal bone.

It is nonetheless still powerfully structured and well adapted to anchoring exceptionally strong jaw muscles[5] which give it enough bite-force to splinter a camel's thigh bone.

The outer surface of the thighs has 3–4 distinct vertical or oblique dark bands which merge into transverse stripes in the lower portion of the legs.

Hyenas in the Arabian peninsula have an accentuated blackish dorsal mane, with mid-dorsal hairs reaching 20 cm in length.

[7][28] The striped hyena is a primarily nocturnal animal, which typically only leaves its den at the onset of total darkness, returning before sunrise.

[9] The striped hyena may dig its own dens, but it also establishes its lairs in caves, rock fissures, erosion channels, and burrows formerly occupied by porcupines, wolves, warthogs, and aardvarks.

The striped hyena hides in caves, niches, pits, dense thickets, reeds, and plume grass during the day to shelter from predators, heat, or winter cold.

[33] Because of the high content of calcium in its diet, the feces of the striped hyena becomes white very rapidly, and can be visible from long distances.

Both predators may benefit from this unusual alliance, as the hyenas have better senses of smell and greater strength, and the wolves may be better at tracking large prey.

[11][29] In addition, the hyena is sympatric with the Asiatic lion in Gir Forest National Park,[38] and the sloth bear in Balaram Ambaji Wildlife Sanctuary, in the Indian State of Gujarat.

[39] The striped hyena's historical range encompassed Africa north of and including the Sahel zone, eastern Africa south into Tanzania, the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East up to the Mediterranean Sea, Turkey, Iraq, the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia), Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan (excluding the higher areas of Hindukush), and the Indian Subcontinent.

Today the species' distribution is patchy in most ranges, thus indicating that it occurs in many isolated populations, particularly in most of west Africa, most of the Sahara, parts of the Middle East, the Caucasus, and central Asia.

Its modern distribution in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan is unknown with some sizable large number in India in open areas of Deccan Plateau.

[40] Striped hyenas are frequently referenced in Middle Eastern literature and folklore, typically as symbols of treachery and stupidity.

In his book Marvels of Creatures and the Strange Things Existing (عجائب المخلوقات وغرائب الموجودات), he wrote that should one of this tribe be in a group of 1,000 people, a hyena could pick him out and eat him.

[12] Al-Doumairy in his writings in Hawayan Al-Koubra (1406) wrote that striped hyenas were vampiric creatures that attacked people at night and sucked the blood from their necks.

[48] Until the end of the 19th century, the Greeks believed that the bodies of werewolves, if not destroyed, would haunt battlefields as vampiric hyenas which drank the blood of dying soldiers.

Though the King James Version of the Bible interprets this word (which appears in the Book of Jeremiah 12:9) as referring to a "speckled bird", Henry Baker Tristram argued that it was most likely a hyena being mentioned.

[54] Algerian hunters historically considered the killing of striped hyenas as beneath their dignity, due to the animal's reputation for cowardice.

Although hyenas were generally not fast enough to outrun horses, they had the habit of doubling and turning frequently during chases, thus ensuring long pursuits.

Generally though, hyenas were hunted more as pests than sporting quarries; their scavenging damages skulls, skins and other articles from hunter's camps, which made them unpopular among sportsmen.

[12] The Ancient Greeks and Romans believed the blood, excrement, rectum, genitalia, eyes, tongue, hair, skin, and fat, as well as the ash of different parts of the striped hyena's body, were effective means to ward off evil and to ensure love and fertility.

In West and South Asia, hyena body parts apparently play an important role in love magic and in the making of amulets.

In Iranian folklore, it is mentioned that a stone found in the hyenas body can serve as a charm of protection for whoever wears it on his upper arm.

In the Pakistani province of Sindh, the local Muslims place the tooth of a striped hyena over churns in order not to lose the milk's baraka.

Hyena blood has been held in high regard in northern India as potent medicine, and the eating of the tongue helps fight tumors.

When they are raised with a firm hand, they may eventually become affectionate and as amenable as well-trained dogs,[54][60] though they emit a strong odour which no amount of bathing will cover.