The comparative behavioural ecology of the brown hyaena Hyaena brunnea and the spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta in the southern Kalahari.

Abstract

The brown hyaena is a scavenger of a wide variety of vertebrate remains, supplementing its diet with wild fruits and insects and is well adapted to this arid region. The spotted hyaena is a hunter-scavenger of large and medium-sized mammals and is not found in such numbers in the S Kalahari as is the brown hyaena. These differences in diet have led to the evolution of large differences in foraging behaviour, social organisation, denning behaviour and communication patterns, spotted hyaenas having a more highly developed social system and living in far larger territories. Spotted hyaenas are dominant to brown hyaenas, but because of their low density in the S Kalahari, have little effect on the brown hyaena population there. -from Author