Explore: Fossil Hyenas

diversity, hyenas are unique and vital components of most African ecosystems. Although phylogenetically closer to felines and viverrids, hyenas are behaviourally

Cave hyenas (Crocuta (crocuta) spelaea and Crocuta (crocuta) ultima) are extinct species or subspecies of hyena known from Eurasia, which ranged from Western

young at stake. Spotted hyenas dominate other hyena species wherever their ranges overlap. Brown hyenas encounter spotted hyenas in the Kalahari, where

spotted hyenas, and packs of African wild dogs. In areas where their territories overlap, brown hyenas may, on rare occasions, be killed by spotted hyenas and

striped hyenas at night. The Arabic word for striped hyenas is alluded in a valley in Israel known as Shaqq al-Diba (meaning "cleft of the hyenas") and

Proteles is a genus of distinctive hyenas which contain the aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) and its close fossil relatives. It is the only extant genus

species. Genetic analysis of cave hyenas have found them to be strongly genetically divergent from living African spotted hyenas, albeit with some evidence of

spotted hyenas in Malawi feed on medium to large-sized ungulates such as waterbuck and impala. In Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve, spotted hyenas primarily

modern hyenas is debated. A 2008 study suggested that it was most closely related to the spotted hyena (Croctuta crocuta) among living hyenas. Conversely

Gansuyaena is an extinct genus of small hyenas that lived through the Middle to Late Miocene. Among all known fossil hyaenids Gansuyaena was the most closely