A carnivore of sub-Saharan Africa, with dark spots on a pale coat, rounded ears and a back that slopes down toward the rump.
Its forelegs are longer than its hind legs. The neck and head are robust, and spots may fade in old animals.
Young spotted hyenas tend to associate with the individuals their mothers often spend time with, even after leaving the communal den. Similar patterns of social connections can persist for years as direct mother–offspring association becomes less frequent. A mother thus provides a starting point for an offspring’s relationships within the clan.
A 2021 paper used 73,767 observations of social interactions collected over twenty-seven years. Researchers compared mothers’ and offspring’s relationships with other hyenas using how often pairs were observed together during each year. A mother’s associations before her offspring left the den also predicted the youngster’s associations in the following year.
The resemblance persisted through the first four years after den independence in males and six years in females. From the second year onward, offspring of higher-ranking mothers tended to show greater resemblance. The authors interpreted this social inheritance as a process shaping clan networks. Offspring of lower-ranking mothers also tended to form stronger associations overall than their mothers did.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Reducing livestock losses is an important part of addressing conflict with spotted hyenas. Monitoring twelve livestock corrals in central Kenya from September 2018 to May 2019 recorded 1,052 encounter events involving this species and five confirmed attacks. The authors proposed improving waste management and using secure butchering locations away from corrals to reduce opportunities for scavenging that might attract hyenas.