This mammal breaks one of nature's biggest rules - and scientists have finally worked out why…

For most mammals, it’s the males who are dominant. They’ll compete fiercely with each other and a select few of the top males father most of the children. Females usually share motherhood more equally.

Spotted hyenas defy this rule. It’s the females who are at the top of society as they compete with each other and build huge dynasties.

Scientists had previously only observed female dominance in species where the males do all the childcare, like with sea horses, or where the alpha female prevents the other females from mating, like with meerkats.

But a new study by the Ngorongoro Hyena Project at the Leibniz-IZW and the ISEM has identified a third way. When social privilege is handed down from mothers to daughters, female power compounds over time, making them the animal kingdom’s ultimate nepo babies.