Hyenas take energy from their mothers, but it’s the privilege that pays off the most, a 30-year-old study has found

In some monarchies, hereditary rule provides a ladder that can be climbed to absolute rule—either through negotiation, tyranny, or over time. But in hyena monarchies, hereditary power is a slippery slope. A study from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior investigated groups of hyenas over three decades. They found that the way hyenas take their responsibility from their mothers, which is known as maternal inheritance, destroys the culture of the people.

According to research, now published in the magazine Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological SciencesEvery member of the tribe, except for the highest queen, has difficulty descending throughout their lives.

“It paints a very worrying picture of hyena groups,” says Eli Strauss, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the paper’s lead author. “No matter what position you get, the only way is down.”

True or not, hyenas are not known to be noble, yet their realms closely resemble human kingdoms. Hyena groups are organized according to the line of authority, and children inherit their position under their mother through a system like royalty. At the top of the hierarchy is the highest female—the queen—followed by her offspring, and then all the other females and their offspring.

The place of the hyena in human governance is very important. Strauss, who also holds a position at Michigan State University, said: For Strauss, the interview raised an interesting question. If officers inherit their roles from their mothers, can they break roles and change roles? Or is the quality of the hyena’s life predestined from birth?

To find out, Strauss used a remarkable database from the Mara Hyena Project, which has been studying hyenas seen in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya since the late 1980s. four, Strauss found that hyenas can go up and down the hierarchy over time, but they go down more often than they jump up. “You wouldn’t think this decline was happening if you were just looking at wildlife, because it happens over many years,” he says. “It’s only by looking at the different generations that you realize that a daughter born to an alpha queen has been on the decline all her life.”

But what caused the downward spiral to continue? In studying the life history of all individuals, Strauss found that hyenas decline significantly because another hyena joins or leaves the group. In other words, through overpopulation. “It’s interesting to think about the plot and tactics of Game of Thrones, when the animals are plotting to destroy each other,” he says. “But in hyena societies, a person’s power gradually decreases as other species are born or die.”

Using methods used to study human behavior, Strauss then created groups of computer hyenas, where he could turn off different parts of their biology. This allowed him to learn the exact rules of the people who run the strange systems. The comparison pointed to two sources: the royal heredity of hyena groups and the fact that elite females also produce more children. These included values ​​mean that new members are not added randomly.

“They’re being added to the top of the hierarchy, under the leadership of women, which pushes everyone else down over time,” Strauss says. Obviously, only the queen survived this tragedy of gradual decline over time, because it is impossible for anyone to receive a higher position than her.

This work shows how human nature has a profound effect on humans, sometimes taking over a group of animals by changing its lifestyle. Strauss said, “It seems that no matter what the hyenas do, their status will decline over time. It’s hard to understand that they go through lives where everyone, but the queen, loses. They win, so the next question is how.”