[12] However, the social system of the spotted hyena is openly competitive rather than cooperative, with access to kills, mating opportunities and the time of dispersal for males depending on the ability to dominate other clan-members.

Its success is due in part to its adaptability and opportunism; it is primarily a hunter but may also scavenge, with the capacity to eat and digest skin, bone and other animal waste.

[16] The spotted hyena has a long history of interaction with humanity; depictions of the species exist from the Upper Paleolithic period, with carvings and paintings from the Lascaux and Chauvet Caves.

[18][19] The spotted hyena's scientific name Crocuta was once widely thought to be derived from the Latin loanword crocutus, which translates as 'saffron-coloured one', in reference to the animal's fur colour.

Its range once encompassed almost all of Africa and Eurasia, and displayed a large degree of morphological geographic variation, which led to an equally extensive set of specific and subspecific epithets.

[8] It has been theorised that female dominance in spotted hyena clans could be an adaptation in order to successfully compete with males on kills, and thus ensure that enough milk is produced for their cubs.

[13] Another theory is that it is an adaptation to the length of time it takes for cubs to develop their massive skulls and jaws, thus necessitating greater attention and dominating behaviours from females.

[30] This stance was contested by Ficarelli and Torre, who referred to evidence of the spotted hyena's presence from African deposits dating from the early Pleistocene, a similar age to the Asian C.

[12] Spotted hyena societies are more complex than those of other carnivorous mammals, and are remarkably similar to those of cercopithecine primates in respect to group size, structure, competition and cooperation.

[76] The mating process is complicated, as the male's penis enters and exits the female's reproductive tract through her pseudo-penis rather than directly through the vagina, which is blocked by the false scrotum and testes.

The higher androgen levels – the result of high concentrations of ovarian androstenedione – are thought to be responsible for the extreme masculinization of female behavior and morphology.

Spotted hyenas exhibit adult behaviours early in life; cubs have been observed to ritually sniff each other and mark their living space before the age of one month.

[12] Spotted hyenas are a good subject for studying the causes and consequences of stress because of the behavioral plasticity they exhibit to respond to their variable and unpredictable environment.

[96] The hormonal and behavioral responses of spotted hyenas to a variety of stressful stimuli can shed light on how they will adapt in the future and how other gregarious, group-living species may respond to similar stressors.

[98] While corticosteroids typically fluctuate in predictable patterns across life-history states, spotted hyenas exhibit hormonal and corresponding behavioral responses to unpredictable social, environmental, and anthropogenic stressors.

[100] These challenges are exasperated by the increased unpredictability of migratory patterns in hyena prey resulting from climate related changes in the lengths of wet and dry seasons.

In Kenya's Masai Mara, 80% of the spotted hyena's prey consists of topi and Thomson's gazelle, save for during the four-month period when zebra and wildebeest herds migrate to the area.

[134] It is said that feasting Hyaenas engage in violent fights, and there is such a croaking, shrieking and laughing at such times that a superstitious person might really think all the inhabitants of the infernal regions had been let loose.The spotted hyena has an extensive vocal range, with sounds ranging from whoops, fast whoops, grunts, groans, lows, giggles, yells, growls, soft grunt-laughs, loud grunt-laughs, whines and soft squeals.

[147] In west African tales, spotted hyenas symbolise immorality, dirty habits, the reversal of normal activities, and other negative traits, and are sometimes depicted as bad Muslims who challenge the local animism that exists among the Beng in Côte d'Ivoire.

In the Gelede cult of the Yoruba people of Benin and Southwest Nigeria, a spotted hyena mask is used at dawn to signal the end of the èfè ceremony.

Certain it is, that few marked characters in history have suffered more from the malign inventions of prejudice[149] Traditional Western beliefs about the spotted hyena can be traced back to Aristotle's Historia Animalium, which described the species as a necrophagous, cowardly and potentially dangerous animal.

The rate at which the species targets livestock may depend on a number of factors, including stock keeping practices, the availability of wild prey and human-associated sources of organic material, such as rubbish.

[155] Victims of spotted hyenas tend to be women, children and sick or infirm men,[156] and there are numerous cases of biologists in Africa being forced up trees to escape them.

[154][155] In 1903, Hector Duff wrote of how spotted hyenas in the Mzimba district of Angoniland would wait at dawn outside people's huts and attack them when they opened their doors.

[158] An anecdotal 2004 news report from the World Wide Fund for Nature indicates that 35 people were killed by spotted hyenas during a 12-month period in Mozambique along a 20 km stretch of road near the Tanzanian border.

A corpse rejected by hyenas is seen as having something wrong with it, and liable to cause social disgrace, therefore it is not uncommon for bodies to be covered in fat and blood from a slaughtered ox.

The Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa is estimated to have up to a thousand resident hyenas which survive by scavenging rubbish tips and preying on feral dogs and cats.

[147] During the early years of Dutch colonisation in southern Africa, hyenas (referred to as "wolves" by the colonists) were especially susceptible to trapping, as their predilection for eating carrion, and lack of caution about enclosed spaces, worked against them.

[173] Sir John Barrow described how spotted hyenas in Sneeuberge were trained to hunt game, writing that they were "as faithful and diligent as any of the common domestic dogs".

[158] An April 2004 BBC article described how a shepherd living in the small town of Qabri Bayah about 50 kilometres from Jigjiga, Ethiopia managed to use a male spotted hyena as a livestock guardian dog, suppressing its urge to leave and find a mate by feeding it special herbs.