Unicorn's Guide to the Galaxy - uh Sanctuary ^,^
~*~ Guide Main Page ~*~
~*~ Is Kevin Richardson a hypocrite? ~*~ Breeding ~*~ Releasing ~*~ Cub Petting ~*~
~ Canned Lion ~ Ask Meg & Amy + misc. ~ Teeth ~ Surgery ~ Hyena ~ Leopards ~ Enrichment ~ Volunteering ~
~ * ~ HYENA ~ * ~
April 27 is International Hyena Day
This page concentrates on fun and informative hyena posts and dispelling the myths about them: Rather than scavengers, hyena actually hunt most of their food and often have their meals stolen from them by lions. The spotted hyenas at the Sanctuary have helped with research about the species and show how they are intelligent and quite lovable animals. Like other predators, they do like to roll in stinky stuff, but Kevin says that's okay: They wash it off in their drinking water. ^.^
I love pit bulls, which are so misunderstood, and misused, it can be tragic. We shouldn't condemn a breed, or species, of animal because of stereotype and one-sided media portrayals. A great many thought hyena were horrible until they learned differently by getting to know Kevin and his Sanctuary. If you haven't already, you should check them out! ^_~
Hyena may be mischievious, stinky bum nutcases ^,^, but they are not evil, conniving, or stupid. ^_~ And they're not detrimental to the environment: They're an apex predator essential to the health of the ecosystem. "Life-like" or "realistic looking" in movies is just that: It doesn't necessarily mean the behaviour is, too.
I had never really thought about hyena before - I'm a cat person - but given their poor rap in previous media, even not having anything against them I had thought they were just nuisance scavengers. Kevin's media has converted me, and it's pretty cool to know that hyena are actually more closely related to cats than to dogs. All you cat-people take note! ^_~
Scents & Sense Abilities series
~ hyena senses ~
~ hyena touch ~
~ hyena hearing ~ hyena hearing pt 2
critical part of ecosystem - and so cute!
Hyenas Love Baths
Happy Hyenas
Striped Hyenas"Meet the Hyenas" eating a gopro
hyena rivalry, born with eyes open and with teeth already in
Meet Bongo
resistant to parasites, clan heirarchy, and more
Smithsonian with Kevin on hyena
-- hyena heiarchy --
-- scent marking language, and about lions too --
-- Killer IQ clips --Nicolas, George & Yame, and hyena insights
Brown hyena are the rarest of the hyena. They help maintain a clean and healthy environment and always make me think of Dr. Seuss, like they walked out of one of his books. ...sloping back, wispy long, dark brown fur draped over grey and black striped legs, scruffy fur collar, shapely head with large ears...
They're a little smaller and more solitary than spotted hyena and often clean up after larger predators, especially lions - though they need to be careful not to become the next lion-kill. On their own, brown hyena hunt smaller animals and even eat insects and fruit. They're also called "strandwolf", because many live near the coast and hunt seal pups on the rocky beaches.
This one is a couple more pictures you can cut out, if you like, to attach to a jar for a decorative holder, or to an empty toilet paper roll to stand up. Remember to just run your finger over a line of glue up the center and line up the bottoms - oh, and when attaching to a jar you've covered with plain or decorated paper, attach the picture so that it covers the seam.
...the animals in the group for World Wildlife Day may not all be to proper scale - I didn't check as I went along, and didn't want to erase anything later... ;p
The spotted hyena, like the ones at the Sanctuary, are the largest of the four hyena species. Brown hyenas are a little smaller, and then the striped hyenas are smaller than the brown. The smallest is the aardwolf. They look a lot like the striped hyena but are only about twice as big as a housecat and are insectivores, eating mainly termites. - From what I remember reading, they don't dig for termites like other termite-eaters, they just lap them up from the ground.
Check out the links in the sidebar for more posts about hyena and also on instagram: Africat Namibia (I learned there that brown hyena climb trees to steal meat put out for leopard camera traps. ^,^) , Kim Wolhuter , and the Jouberts have posted about the different hyena - Beverly , Dereck.
There's lots of spotted hyena at the Sanctuary, and they have two striped hyena, too.
Found a page at Fauna Focus with lots of aardwolf info.
This cut-out craft features the striped hyena and aardwolf. I had hoped to get them together on one cut-out; but to show off their neat "sails", they really needed their own pictures.
Hyenas have distinct vocalizations and one sounds like a cow lowing. I used it for fun in this Valentine's poem, but it's actually not one they use for fun. ^.^ You can hear one of the Sanctuary hyenas doing it a bit in their Scents & Sense Abilities video. (same as first link in that section above)
The Scents & Sense Abilities for hearing also has some of the different vocalizations.
Here's a spotted hyena pop-up card that is sized to fit into regular letter envelopes. It was kind of hard to draw a hyena in this postion. I hope you can tell what it is. ^,^
Color the background however you like, before attaching the pop-up figure - just remember that glue won't stick well to crayon. (If you attach the figure first then color the background, color down behind the figure a bit to avoid a blank spot. ^_~)
The photo below illustrates the direction the folds should be. If it helps you line the diagonal folds up, you can fold them back first then fold them forward. All folds should meet at the center of the bottom edge.
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~ * ~ * ~*~ * ~ * ~Be a steward of the Earth.
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gstk83@catlover.com
[I make the printable images to be around 8x11 inches to fill a sheet of regular letter-size paper when printed. Coloring pages may be printed from here and made copies of for non-profit, free-of-charge use only. Plant seeds! ^_^]
