Hyena
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" Ecology is the study of the distribution and abundance of organisms and their interactions with their environment, including parasites and pathogens. Immunology is the study of the physiological functioning of the immune system in states of health and disease. The former discipline implicitly acknowledges the importance of the latter but treats it as a black box. Likewise, the latter discipline implicitly acknowledges the importance of variation between individuals, but relies on a logistic foundation that necessarily removes individual variation from its empirical approach and so avoids the complex interactions which determine an organism's life history in its natural environment." H. Schulenburg, J.
Webpage of Andy Flies
Cognitive processes are, of course, mediated by nervous systems; thus the social complexity hypothesis predicts that non-primates living in complex societies should possess brain structures mediating social behaviour that are similar to those in primates. The social complexity hypothesis considered specifically in relation to nervous systems has been dubbed ‘the social brain hypothesis’ ( Brothers 1990 ; Barton & Dunbar 1997 ). Considered in relation to body size, the brains of primates are relatively large and complex compared with those of other animals, including most non-primate mammals ( Jerison 1973 ; Macphail 1982 ; Harvey & Krebs 1990 ). The relatively large brain size noted among primates is due primarily to the unusually large expanse of neocortex, the laminated, almost uniformly thick grey matter covering much of the outer surface of the brain ( Dunbar 2003 ).
Social intelligence in the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
MSU Hyena Research: Are you going to eat that?
We humans usually think of ourselves as pretty smart. One of the intelligent ideas ourancestors happened upon long ago, was the concept of cooking our food before we eat it. Many modern cultures place a good deal emphasis on cooking as a means to enrich the taste of the food. However, the overriding reason that cooking food has spread throughout human societies is that it is still the most effective way of killing microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protists) that would otherwise make us ill. For those of us that love a good steak, we often prepare the steak rare or medium rare, meaning the steak is not cooked all the way through.
Kay E. Holekamp Laboratory - Welcome!
Research in my laboratory focuses on mammalian behavioral development and its physiological substrates. My students and I are currently investigating how social, ecological, and endocrine variables interact during an individual's early development to influence its subsequent behavior and its reproductive success as an adult. Former PhD student Jenn Smith was a fellow of the MSU graduate school while she was here. The grad school has profiled here and mentioned here as a "featured fellow" on the MSU "support for students" blog: BBC came to the Mara and produced the following short film about our research and hyenas.
Hyenas Cooperate, Problem-solve Better Than Primates
ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2009) — Spotted hyenas may not be smarter than chimpanzees, but a new study shows that they outperform the primates on cooperative problem-solving tests. Captive pairs of spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) that needed to tug two ropes in unison to earn a food reward cooperated successfully and learned the maneuvers quickly with no training. Experienced hyenas even helped inexperienced partners do the trick.
Are you smarter than a Hyena? « Laelaps
Spotted Hyena ( Crocuta crocuta ), the “bad guys” of the African plains. My wife is repulsed by them, but I find something oddly intriguing about these predators; any social carnivore in which the female has a functioning pseudo-phallus nearly indistinguishable from the male’s is bound to stand out. Spotted Hyena are extremely effective, social predators, being much more effective hunters than many people think.