Spotted hyenas are mostly active at night, with activity peaks near midnight and before sunrise, though some daylight activity is not uncommon. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance describes the spotted hyena's eye as similar in size to a human's, with few cone cells, a 100:1 ratio of rods to cones. Color vision is possible but likely limited. Spotted hyenas also have keen senses of sight, hearing and smell.
A clan's territory can be as small as 40 square kilometers in Ngorongoro Crater or as large as 1000 square kilometers in the Kalahari. Within it, hyenas travel far. In a study in the southern Kalahari, spotted hyenas travelled about 27 km a night, and they can travel as far as 80 kilometers in a single night.
In the Serengeti, hyena clans make hunting trips to the nearest herds when migratory prey leave their territory. The average round trip is about 80 km. Ecologists call this a commuting system: hyenas defend a clan territory but make frequent long trips to herds, which lets them live at higher densities than the territory alone would support. Hyenas are the most numerous large predator in Africa where hoofed animals are common.
Sources give different numbers for how fast a spotted hyena runs when chasing food. Animal Diversity Web says up to 60 km/hr. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance reports speeds above 50 km/hr, which is 31 mi/hr. The Toronto Zoo says a spotted hyena can chase for up to five km, running 40 to 50 km per hour.
Spotted hyena teeth are specialized for applying extreme force. The enamel is reinforced with a 3-D structure of zig-zagging bands to resist fracture. In one study, the strongest bite measured from a captive spotted hyena was about 4500 N, and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance says it is likely higher in the wild. Bite strength increases with age and plateaus at 5 to 6.5 years, says a study the zoo cites. You may have heard that the hyena has the strongest bite of all animals. In fact, only for its size is its bite one of the strongest of any mammal.
The social lives of spotted hyenas are remarkably like those of baboons and macaques in size, structure, and patterns of competition and cooperation. A puzzle test shows another side. In puzzle-box tests in Kenya with 62 wild hyenas, hyenas had to slide open a bolt latch to get meat. Only nine of 62 succeeded.
Hyena whoops can be heard by people from more than 5 km away, says San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. People once thought hyenas were hybrids of dogs and cats, but there are no reports of hyenas hybridizing with any other animal. The IUCN Red List status of the spotted hyena is Least Concern (2014 assessment, listed as of November 2026). Hyenas are widespread, with more than 10,000 mature individuals, and declines outside protected areas were judged not sufficient to warrant listing in a threatened category.
Words to know
- enamel: tooth coating
- plateaus: levels off
- migratory: on the move
- cone: a color cell
- commuting: regular trips
