Among the hyena families, the spotted hyena is the most famous and the most powerful in size, and the brown hyena is rarely heard. Although the body size is smaller than the African second brother, it is much grumpy and has a good record! The recipe includes not only land mammals but also marine animals, and loves to eat melons. Although it is a scavenger, robbing and robbing cheetahs, leopards, and even wild dogs, although the strength is not as good as the big brother spotted hyena, it is quite jealous, of course, not only the big brother, but also the lion that makes African animals fearful, but the number is superior, it is the largest and most important carnivores in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, and there are few opponents, dominating the king!
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > brown hyena single-handedly robbed 5 cheetahs</h1>
The fastest land animal on earth, the cheetah, can quickly accelerate to 117km/h, specializing in small and medium-sized antelopes, specialized in shape, lighting speed, sacrificing strength of big cats in The African grasslands and savannahs are often at a competitive disadvantage in the face of other large predators, and need to eat quickly before the more powerful predators steal and rob their prey.
In the Kalahari Desert, one of these similar animals is the brown hyena. In April 2017, photographer Drek Kotas documented a calm, smiling and demonic brown hyena single-handedly snatching an antelope from five cheetahs.
Cortas observed five cheetahs enjoying freshly hunted springboks at the Kagragdi Crossing Park in Botswana, South Africa, feasting on their mouths full of blood. A brown hyena strolled slowly in the direction of the cheetahs. After arriving, he casually picked up the back half of the antelope's body and nibbled it, and after eating enough, he wandered away.
5 cheetahs eating springboks that they had just hunted
Unfortunately for the Cheetah 5 brothers, the inhumane behavior of the brown hyena was not over, and soon reappeared, with no one dragging the remaining bodies away. The hateful brown hyena, not only full but also packed, eats meat and serves the pot.
The brown hyena takes all the remaining springboks with them
The cheetahs looked particularly depressed, and the jackals then appeared and cleaned up the remaining intestines, along with other dirty residues.
The jackal cleans the last remnants
What the photographer saw was typical of the brown hyena's scavenging behavior, although this "famine" was often not voluntary by other animals. Brown hyenas easily rob prey from cheetahs, and from May 1974 to November 1977, a brown hyena was observed 4 times in the central Kalahari Desert robbing adult or springbok from cheetahs. When the brown hyena sees a cheetah, it often runs towards the poor spotted big cat of the cheetah with a swift pace, obviously to see if the cheetah has successfully hunted, waiting for the opportunity to seize the fruits of victory and free lunch.
The animal often cuts its legs off the carcass, drags it hundreds of meters to hide, and then returns to carry more, what a great storage master! But for the animals that were robbed, I think they were extremely disgusted, but unfortunately, the dragon swim shoal was played by shrimp, the tiger fell in Pingyang and was bullied by the dog, and the person who knew the current affairs was Junjie, helpless.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > brown hyenas are mainly scavengers, not only land mammals but also marine animals in the diet, love to eat melons when there is a shortage of water in summer</h1>
Brown hyenas weigh about 40 kg and are similar to striped hyenas, mainly scavengers, often looking for carrion alone, similar to the feeding habits of striped hyenas.
In south africa and some parts of West Africa, brown hyenas eat the carcasses of dolphins, whales, fish and seabirds that have been washed ashore, and their range of activities includes coastal areas. It has been reported that the stomach of a brown hyena in transvaised province, South Africa, contains 64.8% mammalian and 34.6% plant matter residues.
Brown hyenas forage for food on the coast
The southern Kalahari Desert brown hyena feeding habits typically include carrions picked up from other predators, small mammals and birds that hunt or pick up on their own, insects, reptiles, and other materials such as eggs, skins, horns, and fruits. Of the foods Mills directly observed, only 0.8 percent were brown hyenas hunting on their own. Of all the hunting attempts observed, only 6% were successful, targeting prey smaller than the baby springbok. It can be seen that the brown hyena in the southern Kalahari Desert is predominantly a scavenger that supplements its diet by occasional hunting and eating fruit.
Brown hyenas eat wild watermelons
Central Kalahari usually experiences one rainy season and one dry season each year, but prolonged droughts are not uncommon, with up to 8 months of the year and no rain or surface water at the Central Kalahari Wildlife Sanctuary. Brown hyenas consume large amounts of plants, especially from wild watermelons, African cucumbers and Nordan watermelons, especially during the dry months, which become an important source of water for brown hyenas. Of the occasional brown hyena stool sample collected in August or September, 50% consists of wild watermelon, African cucumber and Nordan watermelon skins and seeds.
Directly observed brown hyenas eat plants
Manure analysis of brown hyenas eating plant substances
Of the central Kalahari brown hyena feeding habits (fecal analysis), 35.9% were fresh remains of large mammals (the size or larger of a rock oryx) killed by other predators. 33.9% were other substances picked up, such as old bones, horns, eggs and feces. 16% are animals hunted by brown hyenas on their own, and 12.5% are plants, usually melons. These observations involve some bias, as it is much easier to observe brown hyenas feeding on huge carcasses than picking up a small thing during the foraging period.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > on lions, brown hyenas to monitor from a distance, secretly observing whether to leave</h1>
When lions are at prey spots, brown hyenas avoid nearby areas, generally 200 meters away; brown hyenas are very cautious when approaching their prey even when lions leave. Between May 1974 and November 1977, a brown hyena was observed in central Kalahari for 3.5 years when a herd of lions left the carcass of the African oryx, approaching in a slow and roundabout way, taking only a few hundred meters to reach it in 36 minutes.
There's a reason brown hyenas are so cautious, and 2 adult male lions have been spotted attacking 1 brown hyena, and similar reports have been reported elsewhere. Brown hyenas generally avoid contact with lions, although they often observe lions from a distance, apparently to see if the predator is still in prey.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > brown hyenas are smaller than spotted hyenas, eat slowly, and are unable to compete with spotted hyenas</h1>
Brown hyenas are less scavenger and smaller than spotted hyenas, and have found species in their stomachs that are the size of fruit and adult donkey antelopes. Feeding on corpses seems to be much slower than spotted hyenas, apparently eating much less. Crook fed two baby gazelles totaling 14.5 kg to a spotted hyena in 1972 and ate them all within 45 minutes, while brown hyenas could eat for 200 minutes. In general, brown hyenas can ingest no more than 4.5-5 kg of fresh meat, or 1.5-3.0 kg of skin and bone.
Spotted hyenas were observed only 9 times in central Kalahari in the 3.5 years from May 1974 to November 1977. Both were seen as a pair, while the other sightings were single spotted hyenas. At one point, a spotted hyena was observed eating the carcass of antelope left behind by a lion. The spotted hyena traveled some distance but remained in the area. A brown hyena approached within 300 meters of the carcass, but walked away quickly without eating while looking in the direction of the spotted hyena.
Although brown hyenas have little advantage over spotted hyenas, since spotted hyenas and wild dogs rarely meet in the Kalahari Desert, this means that no matter what brown hyenas find to eat, they will not be competed by spotted hyenas or wild dogs. In addition, during the dry months, lions, like spotted hyenas and wild dogs, are rarely encountered. During this season, brown hyenas are usually the largest and most dominant predators in the region and live quite moistly.
Citations
Feeding ecology and its influence on social organization in Brown hyenas of the Central Kalahari Desert