The hyena that made its home in a wolf pack

[klr]

Striped hyenas (Hyaena hyaena) are solitary hunters. They forage alone but occasionally come together to munch on a kill. They are far less sociable than their better-known cousins, spotted hyenas.

Both species are known to be highly intolerant of other large carnivores, and even of other members outside their immediate social group. They will also kill large aggressive dogs that get in their way.

That is why Vladimir Dinets of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, US, was surprised to find that a striped hyena had travelled with a pack of grey wolves – another hostile predator usually intolerant of other species.

"It went against everything that was known about wolves and hyenas," Dinets says. He first spotted tracks of both creatures near Eilat, in the Negev desert of Israel in 1994. This included three grey wolves and one striped hyena.

"Remarkably, in many places the hyena tracks were on top of wolf tracks… The tracks of the three wolves also overlapped each other in all possible orders," Dinets and his colleagues write in a new study in the journal Zoology in the Middle East.

This indicates, they say, that these four animals were walking together at the same time.
...

continued: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160324 ... ith-wolves

[pErvinalia]

hahaha, I read the opening to that article as "Stupid hyenas (Hyaena hyaena) are solitary hunters". And it made perfect sense!

[pErvinalia]

I still reckon the wolves ate the hyena in the end, though. They were just lulling it into a false sense of security.

[Svartalf]

given the size of a hyaena, I bet it was on the contrary, the pack leader

[pErvinalia]

I would have thought wolves are bigger. But hyenas do look like they've got nasty jaws.

[JimC]

A rather skinny set of evidence, really...

[mistermack]

A rather skinny set of evidence, really...

Completely and utterly incontrovertibly dubious, I would say.

Hyena follows wolf tracks, wolves follow hyena tracks, anything more, I want to see the cubs.

[Brian Peacock]

I believe that wolf and hyena can live together in peace.

[pErvinalia]

A wolf in hyena's clothing.

[mistermack]

I think the hyena was just having a laugh.

[piscator]

I believe that wolf and hyena can live together in peace.

It all starts with a vegetarian diet.

[Brian Peacock]

I believe that wolf and hyena can live together in peace.

It all starts with a vegetarian diet.

I believe that wolf and hyena can live together on peas?

[piscator]

They can live together on Africa, just not too close.

[Svartalf]

there are wolves in africa? I thought they only had jackals.

[mistermack]

there are wolves in africa? I thought they only had jackals.

There are wolves in northern Africa. Even right up in the Ethiopian heights or Ngorogoro.
I'm always surprised at where wolves pop up. I used to think they were just North American and Siberia etc. but they get everywhere. Nearly.
But the jackal is very closely related. A bit like the coyote is very closely related to the American Grey Wolves. They can interbreed.