Think Like a Spotted hyena

Question 1 · multiple choice

Where would the tracks of a wild Spotted hyena most reasonably be found?

warm open ocean, coastal upwellings, and seasonal feeding areas savannas, grasslands, and open woodland dry grassland, scrub, and sandy areas with grazing mammals clear slow rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes

Question 2 · multiple choice

Which feeding clue would most strongly suggest that a Spotted hyena had visited?

adults mainly graze seagrasses and algae insects, spiders, crustaceans, and small fish hunts hoofed mammals and also scavenges carcasses organic particles swallowed with sand or gathered from water

Question 3 · multiple choice

If people want to avoid disturbing a Spotted hyena, which activity pattern should they understand?

drifts and pulses continuously without a day schedule hunts by day using vision forages mainly by day often travels and hunts from evening through night

Question 4 · multiple choice

[Image needed: a clear, unlabeled side-view photograph of a Spotted hyena moving naturally in its wild habitat, with its whole body visible and no captions.] How does a Spotted hyena normally move when feeding or travelling?

runs with great endurance rather than relying on one short sprint contracts its bell to move slowly through water walks, stalks, and leaps using hydraulic pressure in the legs runs and scratches on the ground and flies only short distances

Question 5 · multiple choice

Which explanation correctly links a Spotted hyena's body design to what it does?

milkweed toxins stored from the caterpillar diet make adults distasteful massive jaws and crushing premolars allow it to process bones a long tongue rapidly laps nectar while wing joints permit unusual strokes skin toxins are obtained partly from chemicals in its wild arthropod diet

Question 6 · multiple choice

Which observation would fit a Spotted hyena raising or producing young?

chicks grow inside a tree cavity excavated by adults the female builds and guards a nest mound of leaves cubs are born with eyes open and erupted teeth females bury eggs in gravel nests called redds

Question 7 · multiple choice

A camera records several Spotted hyenas. Which group behaviour would be believable?

mostly solitary but can share favourable cave shelters mostly solitary and strongly territorial around burrows mostly solitary and competes around rich food sources lives in female-led clans with complex social ranks

Question 8 · multiple choice

How does a Spotted hyena contribute to the wider community of living things?

recycles carcasses and also controls prey populations as an effective hunter grazing keeps seagrass beds productive and nutrient-rich moves insect energy from land into aquatic food webs recycles nutrients and oxygenates seabed sediment

Question 9 · multiple choice

Which defence description belongs in a safety guide about a Spotted hyena?

relies on enormous size and a thick spotted skin clan members mob threats and defend food together buries food quickly and uses strong legs in contests flies low and fast to escape danger

Question 10 · true false

True or False: A spotted hyena youngsters learn to handle dangerous scorpions through staged lessons from adults.

True False