Carnivores: Aardwolf African Wild Cat African Wild Dog Banded Mongoose Bat Eared Fox Black-backed Jackal Brown Hyena Cape Clawless Otter Cape Fox Caracal Cheetah Civet Dhole Large Spotted Genet Golden Jackal Honey badger Leopard African Lion Asiatic Lion Sand Cat Serval Side Striped Jackal Snow Leopard Spotted Hyena Striped Hyena Suricate (Meercat) Tiger White Tailed Mongoose Yellow Mongoose
Brown Hyenas are smaller than spotted Hyenas at around 40kg when adult. There
is little difference in size between the male and female. The average shoulder
height is 75cm. Brown Hyenas are distinct with strong and long front legs and
the back slopping down to fairly weak hind legs. They have long, shaggy coats
with coarse hair up to 25cm long,
and which are brown or black apart from around the neck and shoulders which is
white. Their undersides are a lighter colour and they have white stripes on
their front and back feet and legs. Their ears are long and pointed.
Brown Hyena are fairly solitary animal and mainly active at night. They have an
excellent sense of smell which assists them in finding carrion. They have very
powerful jaws and large strong teeth for crunching through bone which can be
seen in the photographs below. Males
are slightly larger than females with the average weights being 40.2 Kg for
males and 37.7 Kg for females.
 Side view of a Brown Hyena's skull. (Photo: Ingrid Wiesel)
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 Front view of a Brown Hyena skull (Photo: Ingrid Wiesel) |
Photo: Ingrid Wiesel
Brown Hyena are very vocal animals, like the Spotted Hyena, but unlike Spotted Hyena, Brown Hyena do not have the distinctive laughing call. Brown Hyenas calls are often heard at dusk. When squabbling with each other over food, Brown Hyena will growl, snarl, yowl and whine at each other. The sound console below includes a sound sample of a Brown Hyena. The sound playing console may take a short time to load, particularly if you have a slow internet connection. You will need the macromedia flash plugin to listen to the sound file.
Brown Hyena are well adapted to live in arid regions where there are few
herbivores. They have very keen senses, they
are able to detect a carcass from considerable distances, and are able to run at
high speeds for long distances to get to the carcass before other scavengers. As
well as scavenging off carcasses, they will also eat fruit (e.g. Tsama or
gemsbok cucumber), insects (e.g. locusts, harvester termites and dung beetles), eggs (e.g.
ostrich eggs), and will prey on small animals such as rodents, lizards and
poultry. The scavenging off carcasses can bring them in to conflict with farmers as they feed off dead livestock
though rarely are they responsible for killing it.
When they come across an ostrich nest containing eggs the brown hyena is
able to bite the eggs open even though it has slightly less powerful jaws than
the spotted hyena which has to kick an egg till it hits one of the other eggs
hard enough to break it open so it can consume the egg.
Most of the Brown Hyenas food comes from foraging or scavenging rather than killing although on the Skeleton coast they do kill a significant percentage of their food - largely young seal pups.
In the Namib desert, the low number of other predators means there is little carrion for them to scavenge off inland but there is usually plenty of food washed up on the coast such as dead seal pups, whales or birds. The Brown Hyenas on the coast will often prey on seal pups at the cape fur seal breeding colonies, particularly when the colonies are filled with young (and helpless) pups, but will eat anything edible they find, including dead seals or birds that have been washed ashore. Unlike Spotted Hyena, Brown Hyena will rarely drive other predators from a kill. Brown Hyena generally hunt for food by themselves, and cover large distances, travelling up to 40km in a single night. Brown Hyena are nocturnal and are active for up to 80% of the night.
Brown Hyena spoor - front and back paws.
Photo: Ingrid Wiesel
Spotted Hyena live in clans, in which most of the members are related. These clans are far smaller than those of the spotted Hyena - typically up to around 10 individuals. The social meeting point for the clan is the den. When not at the den, the brown Hyenas are generally solitary.
The clan has a home range which is marked by the members of the clan who use anal scent glands to rub a paste onto anything suitable such as a small bush. The Brown Hyena leaves two different pastes as a scent mark - one white paste which gradually turns brown as it ages, and a black one. Latrine sites are also used to mark territory. Clan home ranges can overlap. The size of the home range is largely dependant on the availability of food but other factors are involved.
The first photo below shows a bush that has been scent marked - a dark mark partway up a vertical branch is visible. The second photo is a close-up view of the scent-marked branch with the two pastes clearly visible - a black paste with a lighter one slightly lower.
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Brown Hyenas are sexually mature by three years of age. Typically only one female in a clan has a litter at a time. Brown Hyena have a gestation period of approximately 97 days. They give birth to between 1 and 4 young (with 3 being the usual litter size) and although it is normally the dominant female that breeds, other females (usually her daughters) can give birth and use the same den. The young are kept in a communal den with a narrow entrance to try and prevent predators such as jackals attacking the cubs while the adults are away searching for food. Cubs are not fully weaned until they are around 15 months old, but they do begin eating meat at around 12 weeks of age. All clan members supplement the diet of the cubs by carrying food back to the den for them. The members of the clan spend a lot of time at the den playing with the cubs, which helps them learn social behaviour.
Brown Hyenas can be found in the drier areas and
savannahs all over southern Africa. They are spread throughout their preferred
habitat in Namibia, South Africa and Botswana and Angola. There is a small
population in Zimbabwe and possibly in Mozambique.
They can survive with very little water and so inhabit areas with less than
100mm of annual rainfall. They will also inhabit woodland savannah with a
maximum of 650mm annual rainfall. They regularly use rocky areas for shelter and
dens.
Brown Hyenas are found in the Southern African region. They are found in Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Brown Hyenas are found throughout Namibia except possibly the eastern Caprivi. They are mainly seen all along the coastline, Etosha National Park, throughout the north and to Bushmanland in the Northeast. Their numbers are estimated to be 500-1000 in Namibia. The main concentrations are along the coast in the southern part of the country and in Etosha National Park. The most recent population estimate (2004) for Brown Hyenas in Namibia was between 500 and 1200 animals. The total Brown Hyena population is estimated to be between 5000 and 8000 individuals.
Although Brown Hyena are no longer listed on CITES, they are a protected species in Namibia and not trophy hunted, although they are shot when they come in to conflict with people (However as stated before they rarely kill livestock).
© Predator Conservation Trust.
