Ice Age spotted hyena

By Lily Bresette

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The cave hyena or the Ice Age spotted hyena is one of the best-known Ice Age
predators. Archaeologists estimate its range was from the Iberian Peninsula to Eastern Siberia.
It lived from 2 million years ago to the end of the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago. The spotted
hyena fed on large animals like wild horses and woolly rhinoceros. The connection between
humans and the cave hyena is not a friendly relationship. The cave hyena would steal kills from
the Neanderthals and us, Homo sapiens. In some cases they were in direct competition for food
and resources, such as cave sites.

A cave hyena protects its kill.

How they were discovered

The first full account of the cave hyena was given by Georges Cuvier in 1812, but in the 1800s
hyena bones were frequently misidentified for other bones such as ...a hyena's mandibular
ramus as that of a calf (young cow). In 1774, Esper erroneously described hyena teeth
discovered in Gailenreuth as those of a lion, and in 1784, Collini described a cave hyena skull
as that of a seal But later these bones were properly classified and documented as hyena
and from the ice age.

A cartoon about a discovery of a cave full of hyena bones

Hunting and food

The hyenas of today are nothing like the cave hyena, present day hyenas mostly
scavenge for food and sometimes steal the young of others. While cave hyenas might have

done this too, science has shown that the cave hyenas were more of a hunter type. If you can
imagine a hyena from today, now make its body bigger and more muscular. These cave hyenas
worked as a group, like lionesses, with this ability to team hunt large prey, they were to survive
on less abundant prey.
Cave hyenas lived in groups, letting them hunt larger prey like woolly rhinos, wooly
Mammoths, wild horses (which they hunted most often) and other prey. A large kill was

consumed by all members of the group.

Cave hyenas used several techniques in hunting. Surprising some prey by silently
stalking and cornering them with several members of the group. And at other times, the cave
hyenas hunted large animals by tiring them out through a long chase and separating the prey
from its herd or family. Once isolated the cave hyena would harass and unbalance the prey by
biting at the feet or head eventually overwhelming the animal. Cave hyenas had extremely
powerful jaws and suffocated their prey or snapped their necks. When the group of cave hyenas
had not been successful at hunting, they adapted to scavenging and stole kills from other meat
eaters, including Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.

Relations with hominids

So cave hyenas already had natural barriers to survival, struggles for food, water,
shelter, sickness, and raising young. The challenge of feeding everyone in the group, left the
cave hyenas in direct competition for resources from the likes of wolves, cave lions, and during
the Ice Age they had to deal with us. Since food was always on the move, migrating, and could
only be found in the right places, cave hyenas and humans were always in a way near one
another, both hunting for food, both using caves for shelter, and both needing to survive the
raging cold. This constant competition for food lead to a competitive and unfriendly relationship.
The first humans cave hyenas had to live next to is Homo Neanderthalensis, that time
period was from 300,000 years ago to 41,000-39,000 years ago. Then they met us, Homo
sapiens, from 44,000 years ago to when the cave hyena died out at about 10,000 years ago or
when the last Ice Age ended.
Caves are helpful to both early humans and hyenas as shelter. But caves were also
limiting especially if there were many members in the group. As the hyenas followed migrating

herds caves were not always available. Leaving the group vulnerable to the weather and other

threats.
There is not a lot of cave art of cave hyenas, one reason may be because both humans
and hyenas migrated regularly for survival, another is that cave drawings are very hard to find
and only survived the passing of time in the most ideal circumstances, and finally it is thought
that humans did not consider the cave hyena a sacred animal and did not represent the hyena
in cave art.
Homo Neanderthalensis and cave hyenas lived in competition in the same
environment for 261,000 years, then the cave hyenas had Homo sapiens to compete with.
Although Homo sapiens did not consider the hyena a sacred animal they did find a use for wild
dogs. At approximately 20,000 years ago, humans had tamed the wild dogs, these dogs
assisted the humans while hunting. Similar to the group hunting technique of hyenas, humans
used dogs to improve their hunting. Perhaps leading to the demise of the cave hyena.
Whatever it was that cause the Ice Age hyena to die out forever we survived and live on
to right now.