Comments

  2. Janet Holmes says

    Just proves what a bitch mother nature really is! Fancy finding an animal even worse designed than people!

  3. jackal.eyes says

    “Why do females put themselves through this pain?”

    Maybe it’s because the extra prenatal testosterone exposure that causes the penis-like clitoris also gives the females superior physical prowess. Maybe the large clitoris is just a side effect of the extra muscle-building hormones.

  5. llewelly says

    They skip over the fact that the lower-ranked hyenas lick the clitori of the higher-ranked hyenas. And they skip the role the hyenas’ high testosterone levels play in the development of its ridiculously strong jaws and forequarters. But HOORAY for a National Geographic video with good narration, rather than cheesy, horrible, annoying narration.

  6. nejishiki says

    “… and a quick getaway after ejaculation.”

    Always a good policy.

    I remember seeing hyenas at UC Berkeley in high school. They had a small group of them there, and I believe they were studying hyena genetics. The woman who gave us the tour beamed with pride as she described their female-dominated social structure.

  7. Hank Fox says

    I loves me some fuzzy critters … but hyenas have always made me more than a little uncomfortable.

    Their proportions are somehow “wrong” to my sense of what a quadruped should look like, and now this … ugh.

    Someone once told me that the best horror movie monsters are normal things tweaked just a little bit. Hyenas look like horror movie monsters to me.

    And damn … can you imagine living on the plains with THESE things out there in the night?

  11. https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawn3yeqDAoctgwo6-DD2CLf7YxBquJvaSfc says

    That video broke me.

    I *knew* about the female-dominated social structure, but seeing that dangling clit… and giving birth through it!…

    That video broke me.

    HJ Hornbeck

  15. toomanytribbles says

    ‘these females are bigger, heavier, and take them on at their own game.’

    dumb line. obviously, it’s not a male game.

  18. Knockgoats says

    Ancient sources for a medieval bestiary’s article on the hyena:

    Aesop’s Fables [6th century BCE] (Aesop: The Complete Fables (London, 1998) Temple 340): It is told that hyenas change their sex, one year being male and the next year female. One day a male hyena tried to perform an unnatural sex act with a female, who told him to remember that what he did to her this year would be done to him next year. (Temple 341): A female hyena wanted to have sex with a male fox, but the fox rejected her, saying that he could not be sure whether she would become his girlfriend or boyfriend.

    Ovid [1st century CE] (The Metamorphoses, Book 15: 391-417): “We might marvel at how the hyena changes function, and a moment ago a female, taken from behind by a male, is now a male.”

  19. petursey says

    So much for an “intelligent designer” :-)

    I’d read about hyena’s..and have seen (and smelled !!) them…the females are the butch-est ladies you’ll ever see anywhere :-)

    I think i may go and post this on some creationist sites and see what rubbish they come up with !!!

  20. SaintStephen says

    It’s not widely known, but Michelle Malkin’s DNA was found to match the genome of the female hyena to better than 99.9%.

    Ann Coulter’s genome, on the other hand, was virtually indistinguishable, with every base pair matching perfectly.

  21. David Marjanović says

    I’ve already read about how stuff works in hyenas. Therefore I don’t dare watch the video. :-}

  22. Charlie Foxtrot says

    Ooookay…

    Made me think of the East German Olympic Womens Team – seen here at the 2m:40s mark of this historical video:

  23. Kevin says

    @David Marjanovic (#21):

    I share that sentiment. I know how it all happens. It’s messed up, and I ain’t even gonna click play on the video.

  25. Pierce R. Butler says

    The anatomy of female hyenas was one of the key examples used by Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin in expounding their idea of evolutionary spandrels.

    More gory details in “Hyena Myths and Realities”, reprinted in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes.

  27. cicely says

    Talk about pushing a watermelon through a garden hose! This would be another case of, “Nice one, God!”, especially since the hyena wasn’t even responsible for eating any cursed apples, excuse me, “fruit”. More evidence for the non-benevolence of “God”.

  28. SaintStephen says

    @26

    Iris:

    Evolution has no purpose. Malkin and Coulter were simply unfortunate mutations.

    I apologize to the hyena species if I was misconstrued.

  29. strange gods before me ॐ says

    And here I was just thinking, “this thread cannot possibly be amusing without some transphobic insults of Ann Coulter. Those’re always good for a lark.”

  33. Hypatia's Daughter says

    Damn, I hate the cheesy narration, especially the bit about how “Africa’s plains are the most macho on Earth”. Females of all species live on them, too – they hunt for food, defend them selves from predators, and raise & defend their young in the wild – just like the males. Do the people who write this dreck think that the African plains have gilded cages where the females spend their lives safely shielded from harm and only the males have to tough it out in the real world?

  35. recovering catholic says

    Some really heavy-duty natural selection going on here for the species to be able to sustain a 25% mortality rate in females giving birth! Wonder what happens to the pups of the ones who don’t make it…