Skip to content Do Cheetahs Eat Hyenas – After becoming a deadly sprinter, the fastest land animal on the planet, the cheetah sacrificed the strength of its big feline companions for a slender, light, elongated body, specializing in hunting small antelopes. In the grasslands and savannas of Africa, this means that this whip-like cat usually has to eat quickly when it eats, before a more dominant carnivore emerges to steal its prey.
One such carnivore in the Kalahari Desert is the brown hyena. Last April, photographer Derek Cates documented the cool, calm, and collected way in which this giant demon-dog-looking beast steals cats.
Do Cheetahs Eat Hyenas
Case was watching five cheetahs feeding on a newborn bird when a brown hyena took off in the southern African part of the massive Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, which is shared with Botswana. The hyena walks carelessly next to the cheetah, starts biting the antelope’s back and then walks away with it.
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Unfortunately for the pentagram, the hyena wasn’t finished: it reappeared a short time later, returned to the corpse and immediately dragged away the rest.
“The cheetahs looked completely depressed,” Kates said in an article in Africa Geographic. “So the jackal took his money to dislodge and clean his entrails and other nasty parts.”
What Kitts saw was the foraging behavior of typical brown caftans. The animal often cuts off a leg from the carcass, hides it hundreds of meters away and returns for more.
The brown hyena is the southern counterpart of the striped hyena in north and northeast Africa, and both are large and only feeders; Its larger relative, the spotted hyena, which ranks higher in the hierarchy of African carnivores, is a more skilled group hunter. The brown kaftan roams southwestern Africa, including the coastal areas of the Namib Desert, where it is often called the “Strandolf wolf” or “Strandeloper.”
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Brown hyenas are happiest when they can take on more carnivores, and their heavy build and powerful jaws mean they can effectively dislodge each other. As Keats’s photographs attest, even the outnumbered brown hyena can steal from cheetahs, which avoid a collision with an injured scavenger. “When a hyena sees a leopard, it often runs to see if it has been killed,” wrote the authors of a 1978 study of brown hyenas in the Central Kalahari.
Cheetahs can also attack brown hyenas: in the same study, a female hyena stole a bird from a male leopard and then attacked the big cat after trying to retrieve the carcass. Here is some after-hours camera footage from a similar encounter:
Lions are another matter: brown hyenas do their best to avoid them and, after emerging from the carcasses, wait a while before coming to look for them. Spotted hyenas and African wild dogs generally dominate brown hyenas. However, these two species are uncommon in the latter’s stronghold, and lions are subject to seasonal and local forces – so in the dry areas of southwest Africa, the brown kaftan is often better.
In the cheetah’s high-speed chases, however, we must also admire the brown catla’s vast agility over the thin hills of the Kalahari. It covers a lot of territory in a given day (in fact, at night – it’s mostly night) and circulates to scent the air for interesting scents. During the rainy season, when ungulates and their prey are abundant, the hyena focuses on scavenging as much as it can. In the dry season, when the herds disappear or disperse, they supplement the meager carrion with wild melons, insects, and any small animals they can hunt.
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Although the brown hyena generally forages alone, it is not antisocial. Resident males and females share large, overlapping tribal areas, interbreed amicably along travel routes and in the remains of large, high-value mammals, and raise their young communally; However, Bedouin men travel to mate with tribal women.
Ethan Shaw is an Oregon-based naturalist and freelance writer originally from Wisconsin. He is fascinated by natural history in all its fields, with a particular interest in landscape ecology, historical ecology, biogeography and wildlife. Follow him @CutoffMountain. See more from this contributor
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In South Africa’s Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, a brown kaftan was recently spotted dragging a large (and surprising) snack between its jaws.
A group of tourists in South Africa had a funny moment when a brown cat and a jackal got confused while eating a giraffe carcass. Hunger Games: Cheetahs, jackals and brown hyenas fight for food.
The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is fast becoming a favorite destination for wildlife hunters from South Africa and beyond. It’s not difficult to see why.
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Home to some of the continent’s most prolific wildlife, this arid park has hosted many memorable animal encounters. Michelle Neal and her husband are the latest in a list of lucky tourists to witness incredible animal acts in Kgalagadi. Courtesy of Wild Card Blog, here is a series of extraordinary images that show the vision of a lifetime. Michelle Neal tells the story below…
This vision happened on our first morning in the park. We spent the night in Augrabies and went straight to Urikaruus. The next day, as soon as the doors opened, we were ready to go. It was freezing and hard work, but we later discovered that it was worth it. A special surprise awaited us.
Before we returned to the thirteenth well, we saw several jackals running towards the riverbed. The next moment we saw two dead cheetahs on the side of the road.
I was frantically taking photos, emphasizing that they were in direct sunlight. After realizing that the cheetahs were not going to give up their prey, I calmed down and thought for a few minutes about the best way to attract them.
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How exciting. We knew we were going to have something special. A brown kaftan was running towards us! I ran through the windshield. The other two cheetahs frantically took a few more bites.
The hyena ran straight towards the killer and claimed his property. The three panthers retreated as if they didn’t know what to do.
Was it him? Will the cheetahs just stand there and let the cat kill them? Was this the end of our vision?
As the hyena tried to chase its prey, one of the cheetahs entered. At this point we start to root for the cheetah!
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The other two moved, but they weren’t very bold in their attack. Hyena decided it was time to comment. This angered one of the panthers even more, so a small fight broke out. Once again, henna won.
She also left us wondering: Could three cheetahs outrun a hyena? During all this, the hyena tried to drag its prey away. The cheetahs tried to eat breakfast, but gave up very easily. They seemed to not know what to do.
The hyena intends to pick up the body and take it away. But even so, the leopards entered and chased the hyena, throwing the carcass to the ground.
We expected the cheetahs to gather together and attack the hina, but that never happened. One cheetah will have a bold moment while the other two watch.
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Finally, all three took a break. The hyena was very involved in the carcass and after finding the liver, it ran to eat this delicacy. This gave the Panthers a chance to act and get the kill back.
A black-backed jackal was not far away and moved to grab the belly that had fallen on the side of the road. (At this point, I felt like my stomach was about to fall into oblivion too!).
Another jackal entered, but it was clearly a young man. It was interesting to observe how he obeyed his elders and how humbly he behaved. After a while, he was allowed to take a bite or two.
Until now, the thief had difficulty keeping his stolen goods. There were fifteen jackals
