Why do women laughhyenas? Are they having fun? Maybe they burst out laughing when they find food? Nothing of that. A new study by Nicholas Mathevon and his colleagues at the Jean Monnet University in Saint-Etienne (France) reveals that hyenas emit theirhysterical laughterwhen they feelfrustrated, mainly when a subordinate animal is attacked and marginalized by a dominant individual of his pack during the hours of the feeding.
The spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), a widespread scavenger mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, has acomplex social structurevery similar to that of some primates such as baboons and macaques. Theirs is a wild hierarchy, in which subordinates are frequently attacked and denied access to food and prevented from mating. Since it is nocturnal animals, the possibilities of visual communication are reduced, and to communicate, and also for members of the lower echelons of the hyena society to “protest”, it is necessary to resort to theacoustic signalsMathevon explains.
But does this justify why the hyena’s laugh is so loud? Mathevon thinks not, and speculates that this laugh could attract other predators, such as lions, to the “feast.” And that it is the fear of this happening that would force the dominant animals to feed their companions so that they keep “their mouths shut.”
E. Sanz
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