Spotted Hyena Society

We can learn from Crocuta crocuta—the spotted hyena.

These animals have fascinated me for a long time. Images from The Lion King aside, the spotted hyena’s pack structure and social organization is something unusual among mammals. From all appearances the females are indiscernible from the males—and this similarity goes right down to their genitals. And yes, even if you were able to lift their skirts and check their goods, female hyenas could be mistaken as a males. Looks can be deceiving: female spotted hyenas have fused labia that resemble a scrotum and testes, and their clitoris is elongated and fully erectile so that it is nearly the size of the male’s penis. What’s even more amazing (to me!) is that these females are fully functional as females—they mate and give birth through this pseudo-penis. This relates to a higher rate of still-born, as cubs suffocate in the long birth canal if their umbilical cord is not long enough. There is also the danger, especially for first time mothers, that their pseudo-penis just won’t stretch wide enough.
We may never know why this species took this particular evolutionary path, but that doesn’t make them any less intriguing. The female masculinization, and it’s consequences in female society can tell us a lot about our own sexual and cultural roots by comparison.

Among spotted hyenas, the females are dominant.

True, the females are larger and more bad-ass, so they can bully their way into kills if need be. But in observation this isn’t always true—males will give up a kill when a dominant female arrives without a fight. Whether the differences in size and genital morphology developed together or separately, it seems plausible that there is a sexual explanation behind the female’s dominance.

Most notable is that female spotted hyenas have complete sexual control—a rare thing among mammal species. What is more common is to find a male in control, because, even if he isn’t more physically powerful, he has an advantage simply because a penis can always trump a vagina. With the spotted hyena, the female cannot be an unwilling participant. With that set of paired genitals, mating is a more tenuous process as the pseudo-penis has to roll up to make anything possible. For the male to be successful the female must allow him to be—even if he were able to force her into submission, her form itself would thwart him.

Typically, whoever controls the sexual power in social groups controls all the advantages of being dominant. We see this particularly in other social mammal groups where the male is typically dominant over a harem or group. Obvious sexual dimorphism (such as size) is usually directly related to the difference in sex roles—the more a male has to compete for the opportunity for mating, the more he will usually be larger and more powerful than the female. Their morphology—our morphology—lends itself to patriarchal society. The spotted hyena morphology lends itself to a female dominated society. If females can always be forced into sex, than the only thing that males have to worry about is competition from their own sex. Even among humans this difference is paramount. While there is strong evidence that humans are becoming less and less dimorphic and therefore more monogamous, males can still force females into sex. The simple fact that rape is possible precludes men towards having more sexual power.

Biologically, the ability for a male to have more sexual power isn’t an unsound way of going about things. If the male has the power and has to compete for mates, than physically sound males have a higher chance of passing their genes onto multiple offspring. Even among monogamous species this seems to hold true—the more “fit” a male is, the more likely he is able to keep his mate and foster offspring to adulthood. Polygamy works well too because one male is able to procreate with many females.

However, spotted hyena society also works incredibly well in practice. They are a very successful species for many reasons—not least because they are able to digest bone matter that other carnivores cannot. They are also incredible social hunters and not just scavengers as they are portrayed by the media. And yet, the women lead. There is a dominant female in a group and a ranking hierarchy in which females generally are more dominant over any given male. The dominant female gets her choice of mates, her choice of food, her nicest places to den, and other benefits that would normally go to the ranking male in another species group. There is still a remarkable amount of cooperation that goes on among these hyena groups, such as close mother-daughter bonding. Their life cycle from birth to adulthood can be harsh because the birthing process (they have to push a cub through that pseudo-penis) is difficult and there is a lot of sibling competition. One thing is clear to me: the spotted hyenas are at no selection disadvantage because of how they operate. In the respect of genetic diversity I imagine they are better off—if females are more likely to mate with different males than their sisters hyena groups as a whole will be more diverse. Perhaps this is one reason the spotted hyena has flourished where many of the other large African predators have not.

It could be possible that the spotted hyenas interesting morphology could have been selected for because the females started acting dominant. With the more dominant female, more masculine hormones were selected for (masculine hormones preclude greater size, dimorphism, erectile tissue, etc.—they are considered “male” hormones because of this, even though all females have them), and the more their pseudo-penises grew. Similar to any type of sexual selection, perhaps once the females morphology began to change it became possible for her to be even more dominant because she now had sexual power. It is of note that only spotted hyenas have this social and morphological difference.

Human society could take a lesson from this: we may not be able to change your gender, sex or genitals, but at least we can understand the biological implications they have on our social interactions. I’d be all for a society in which women have dominance—remember the Amazon warrior women? I think it could still work very well even if we don’t have pseudo-penises. Society could match our sexual powers even if our biology can’t. It could, but will it? The gender roles that were in place at our beginnings may have changed, but essentially men still have the sexual power and therefore the power over how society runs. Spotted hyena females have the advantage of their morphology to take sexual charge. For humans to equalize gender roles and power, human men, along with the women, would have to be conscious and incite such change with that purpose in mind. This isn’t on the individual scale that I’m speaking of, but as society or micro-cultures as a whole. Individually progressive and socially regressive isn’t going to work!

Unfortunately that’s another depressing truth about humankind—we brag about our potential to rise above our biology, but that potential is ever realized. Maybe our only ability that sets us apart from the non-humans is to brag about things we will never do.

Personally, I’m rooting for the spotted hyena.