The Animal Kingdom

“When people talk about the Animal kingdom the Lions are always the first, but are they really the kings of the jungle? Well, let’s ask their mortal enemy, the Hyenas.”

Hi, I’m Simon and we’re exactly the way movies portray us to be, but a teensy bit worse. But first why do humans say we’re part of the dog family? I mean sure we look a little bit alike, which I don’t see by the way, but ew! Those nutjobs could never look as cute, so no! We’re definitely not part of the dog family, especially those ones kept as pets, ugh! Such a disgrace, they should be in the wild, hunting and not laying on their owners’ torsos, that’s the part that should be eaten; anyway, less talk about them and more about us.

First off, we’re not members of the dog family like I mentioned, and neither are we members of the cats. We have our own stunning family, the Hyaenidae, yeah, even I can’t pronounce the name, and under them there are four species: the brown Hyena (the ugliest), the striped Hyena (I call them short, brown Zebras), the Aardwolf (definitely not wolves) and the main guys, us, the spotted Hyenas, oh we’re too sexy and definitely not proud, but not to brag I was actually one of characters in the Lion king, I mean sure they didn’t really mention my name or whatever, but I was there and you know what I actually found out? We’re actually more related to cats than dogs, and I thought maybe our antecedents were hybrids of a cat (considering the fact that we have feline features, like cats) mixed with some other animal, but I did the math and it didn’t click so no! We’re not hybrids.

People call us, spotted hyenas, the “laughing hyenas.” Just because we have an impeccable sense of humour doesn’t mean you have to name us that, but asides the “laughter” you guys think you hear, we actually make those vocalisations at the point of frustration, threat, nervousness, excitement and when we call out for others.

We work in clans as we “laugh” our way towards our meal. When we don’t feel like hunting which is most of the time, we’d wait for a carnivore to get a score for us, but boy we love trouble, there’s something about a Lion’s score that we just can’t resist, especially the lone ones and mm-mm! Do I smell a freshly killed Wildebeest, I love those guys! I’ll be right back... Whoopsie, made a mistake there, that was my cousin and of course I pounced right in, I couldn’t resist, food has been quite scarce so don’t you judge me, but don’t worry he died before he was slashed opened, he choked on grass, I can’t believe he actually tried eating grass, but no animal can be compared to the Wildebeest although we’re not picky with our food, I literally just ate my cousin (giggles) we eat other stuff like snakes, they think they could just slither on our grounds and we wouldn’t do anything? Nah, they’re like spaghetti for us and just any other creature with blood, unlike the other specie of Hyenas, but I’ll talk about that later. There’s no animal we don’t eat, at least I haven’t had the time to think about it, even the Lions, we eat them, ugly punks thinking they’re better than us, I hate them so much, the males look like dufuses with that mane of theirs and don’t get me started with their bald females and of course you ask, “why do you Hyenas hate Lions?” well I’ll answer that, for some reason unknown to us Hyenas you humans call them the “King of the Jungle” I mean you have got to be kidding me right? Those guys? Come on! Wake up! That’s absurd, really. Contrary to what you guys think we’re way more intelligent than an average carnivore including the cats. We are enthusiastic, smart and boy I can’t forget good looking. We don’t like them because of how proud they are, and they don’t even hide it, we clearly have the stronger bite: 1,100 psi, a bite strong enough to break their feeble skulls and our ability to cooperate with our pack is top notch. We don’t waste food, if not for the blood of my cousin on the ground over there trust me, you wouldn’t have thought someone was slain, and there are many other stuff, so many of them, but you know they actually scare us off our feast, sure we do the same, but as so called kings that is not right, that is bullying and yet they’re the Kings of the Jungle? Give me a break.

Anyway, every Hyena clan is headed by a female, an alpha, unlike the hairy uglies we love our women, we don’t lazy around while she gets the food, although in rare cases some clans are led by males. Most clans are led by the matriarchy in a hierarchical structure; the females remain in the pack while the male borns would migrate to another when puberty hits and as an immigrant male myself I am so glad my big, strong, muscular and aggressive beauty chose me to be by her side. Most immigrant males have the advantage of being mated with than the ones born into the clan. Your ability to be submissive gets you the luxury of a female mating partner chosen by the female herself for continued female dominance. Females dominate because they have more social support than males. Some animals make fun of our matriarchy system, it’s not my fault your kinds’ females are weak okay? but most especially they make fun of the difficulty in differentiating between a female hyena and a male one, I’ll tell you this, it might look a bit disturbing but here goes nothing: our females have elongated clitoris, that is, pseudo-penises with fatty tissue (labia) which looks like testicles, giving birth through the top of their penniform clitoris and it’s normal, doesn’t everyone have them? What’s the fuss? And don’t even think about it because I know you are, female Hyenas don’t impregnate themselves or other female Hyenas, they aren’t intersexual (having both male and female sexual characteristics and organs), like I said no testicles!

We love food, ugh! I can’t even begin to explain how much we love food and we’re really strategic about our target like the weak links, the oldies, youngsters, lone ones, injured, half-dead, dead (carrion): yeah, not only Vultures eat carrions, we most definitely do too. We’re really protective of our food; can you imagine the Brown and Striped Hyenas play dead when they’re under an attack, I mean what are they Possums? And don’t get me started on the Aardwolf-- Josh, a Possum pops out of a tree and says, “Okay Simon now, that? Is very offensive, it’s a sleek move and you know it.”

Then I reply, “Why don’t you say it from down here?” with a smirk on my face.

“No thanks,” he disappears into the thick branches.

As I was saying, unlike the rest of the Hyaenidae family the Aardwolf eats termites, like how much of that would satisfy you, wow; but you cannot guess their defense mechanism, oh this is so embarrassing, they secrete a very unpleasant substance from their anal glands, how skunk is that? I’ve just got to ask, how are we in the same family again?

Even though the Brown and striped Hyenas play dead when they’re under attack when it comes to protecting their food even against larger predators they’d stand their ground.

Some of us are affiliated with humans, but not me though, my son was taken by a human, yet somehow I’m being interviewed by one, did you hex me or something?

Interviewer gulps.

It’s not that I hate them, I like them, in my mouth, I mutter. And it’s not like it’s the first time we’ve been taken. Decades ago, my great-great-great-great Uncle witnessed a Hyena, Frank get affiliated with humans, lucky for him a famous one actually, former President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States of America, Frank must have been on cloud 9 until his name was changed to Bill and later sent to the National zoo because he became big; I guess we go up and eventually come back down. Oh, I just spotted a lone Lion with a fresh kill. I alert the rest of my pack with my vocals and approach him.

“What do we have here? Lone Milo, is that you, where’s your wife I thought big men like you don’t hunt,” I said to him all crackled up, “tsk tsk, someone shouldn’t have been naughty now they’re left without a pride.”

“What do you want now Simon?” Milo responds.

“Oh nothing much just that dude you have under your paw.”

“You in what army?” Milo smirks.

“You know what I like about you Milo? You’re an outcast and yet you still have so much pride, and my army is right behind you by the way,” Milo looks back to make sure of what I said, “just give up the dead Antelope.”

“Correction: partly dead,” the Antelope wheezes, Milo presses his paw on the Antelope causing it to wheeze a little louder.

“Shut up,” said Milo.

“You’re hurting him Milo,” I said to him, then I say to my pack, “He’s hurting him.” The pack begins to growl and crackle towards Milo.

“Okay, okay.” Milo lifts his paw off the Antelope aggressively, “We’ll see again.”

“Or not,” then I pause for a moment, “Wait, was that a threat? That’s the last thing you want to do.”

Milo leaves with a disgusting smirk and goes “okay.” What’s that supposed to mean? Argh Lions, so annoying. We approach the Antelope and wait until the females eat first, then the cubs and lastly the males. Well, that’s it for us. So, I've got to ask something off the record though--