Female spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) are larger than the males, and are the clan-leaders!

The spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) is one of the most socially complex carnivore mammal we know of, with large group sizes and lots of intricate social behavior. It is a highly successful species that are able to digest both meat, bones and skin, making it able to fully utilize the preys. This also allows them to be scavengers by utilizing the left-over resources left behind by other predators such as lions or cheetahs.

A spotted hyena. They look pretty cute, but they are extremely skilled and dangerous hunters. Image by Yathin S Krishnappa, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

What I find really remarkable about this animal is that the females are the leaders of the clan (yeah, a group of hyenas are called a clan). This is really uncommon among larger mammals, despite being common in some smaller species. Anyway, the female spotted hyenas are larger than their male counterpart, and will be the dominant partner in the mating season. Even males that have a larger body size than the female in heat will show submissive behavior towards the female.

Their pick of mate is also interesting. The females will prefer to mate with younger males, and tend to pick males that were born after them. Old females show the same behavior, but prefer males that they have had a long-lasting friendly bond with for years. Maybe the term “cougar” for women who prefer younger males should be changed to “hyena”?

The female spotted hyenas also have physiological adaptations to back up their domination of the males. They are the only mammal that does not have an external vaginal opening, but instead have a pseudo-penis! The genitalia looks and acts just like a penis, and the clitoris is penis-shaped and is even capable of becoming erect! The best way to tell the differences between male and female is actually the thickness of the penis or pseudo-penis, and the female will have a higher thickness than the males.

Why are the female the clan leaders?

I don’t want to start a big gender-inequality discussion here, but let me just say that males being dominant and leading groups in the norm among mammals. So why does the spotted hyena have bigger females that are also the clan leader?

One theory is that this adaptation evolved as a measure to let the females be able to outcompete the males while fighting for the food they find or kill. This is needed so that they are able to provide more milk to their cubs, which allows for more cubs to be raised. And just like natural selection has taught us, more surviving cubs with a set of genes that code for a successful adaptation leads to this adaptation becoming abundant after a certain amount of generations.

Another theory about this adaptations is that the cubs needs a long time to develop, and therefore needs the protection of their mother for a long time. This allowed strong and large females to have more offspring, and the course of evolution made this a common adaptation. Cubs will generally nurse from their mother for 12 to 16 months, and during this time the mother will protect them with ferocity, unless it is a close relative that is helping with raising them.

A spotted hyena mother grooming her cub. Image by Flickr user clickety, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Thanks for reading

I just realized that I could spend hours writing about the spotted hyena, because they have so many cool adaptations and social behavior, but I think I will just stick to the female domination theme in this post. Anyway, thank you for reading my post, and make sure to leave a comment below if you’ve enjoyed it, or have any questions about the hyenas!