Alpha female hyenas leave huge family dynasties
A long-term study of spotted hyenas in the Ngorongoro Crater reveals that female reproductive success is more unequal than male success when measured across multiple generations. While males show higher inequality in the first generation, female lineages create more significant long-term family dynasties.
Why it matters
The findings challenge the traditional Darwin-Bateman paradigm regarding sexual inequality in reproductive success across species.
One female spotted hyena in the Ngorongoro Crater died in 1996. Twenty-seven years later, every hyena born into her clan and still alive was her descendant.
Almost half the females in that same crater never had a single grandcub.
Count only one generation of cubs, and male hyenas appear to be the more unequal sex, exactly as biologists expect. Count grandcubs instead, and the females take that title.
Marta Mosna and colleagues at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin followed all eight hyena clans in the crater for 29 years.
Field teams tell every hyena apart by its spot pattern and the notches in its ears. Fathers are harder to know by sight, so the team read DNA from tissue, hair, and the mucus scraped off fresh droppings.
In the end, the researchers pieced together 2,743 hyenas with a known mother, eight generations deep.
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