Spotted Hyena Evolution

The spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), also known as the laughing hyena, [3] is a hyena species, currently classed as the sole extant member of the genus Crocuta, native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is listed as being of least concern by the IUCN due to its widespread range and large numbers estimated between 27,000 and 47,000 individuals. [1] The species is, however, experiencing declines outside ...

High levels of genetic diversity and more stable population sizes through time are seen in the spotted hyena and aardwolf. Taken together, our findings highlight how ecological specialization can impact the evolutionary history, demographics, and adaptive genetic changes of an evolutionary lineage.

Furthermore, visual representations like the one above help us fully grasp the concept of Spotted Hyena Evolution.

The four extant hyena species (spotted hyena, striped hyena, brown hyena, and aardwolf) are the remnants of a large radiation that reached its peak about 5 MYA and contains more than 100 fossil species. (Supplementary Material online). While the aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) is highly specialized, in that it feeds only on termites (Bothma 1998; Bot... See full list on academic.oup.com DNA Extraction We extracted DNA from 78 Pleistocene cave hyena (C. crocuta spelaea) samples, originating from 27 locations across Europe and Asia (Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Material online) and from 46 museum samples (23 spotted hyenas, 13 striped hyenas, and 10 brown hyenas; Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Material online), covering the current and historical ranges of the three extant species. DNA from 40 museum samples were extracted following the methods of Rohland, Siedel, and Hofreiter... Polymerase Chain Reaction and Analyses Amplification of Pleistocene DNA was done as described by Hofreiter et al. (2004), using annealing temperatures between 42C and 52C, depending on the primer pair. We reconstructed a 366-bp fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene, either in four overlapping fragments or, when only amplification of shorter fragments was possible, in seven overlapping fragments (Supplementary Material online). Reamplification (when necessary), cloning, and sequencing were done as described previously (... Dating Several of the Pleistocene hyena fossils have been dated previously (Hofreiter et al. 2004b). In addition to these samples, two hyena fossils originating from Asia were dated at the Leibniz Laboratory, University of Kiel, Germany, using accelerator mass spectroscopy dating. See full list on academic.oup.com We amplified and sequenced 366 bp of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene from 23 spotted hyena museum specimens and 340 bp from 7 brown and 13 striped hyena museum specimens, either as a single piece or in two overlapping fragments. These specimens cover the current and historical range of spotted, striped, and brown hyenas. The spotted hyenas carr... See full list on academic.oup.com Reliability of the Pleistocene Sequences Due to the fact that Pleistocene bones usually contain only small amounts of DNA, sequences obtained from such samples may be affected by contamination (Kolmann and Tuross 2000; Hofreiter et al. 2001b; Wandeler et al. 2003; Serre et al. 2004) or DNA damage (Hansen et al. 2001; Hofreiter et al. 2001a; Gilbert et al. 2003). For several reasons, this is unlikely in our study. First, no haplotypes are shared between Holocene and Pleistocene spotted hyenas. Second, we amplified the fragments using... Phylogenetic Position of Cave Hyenas Cave hyenas, that is, Pleistocene specimens from Eurasia that belong to the genus Crocuta, are usually considered a subspecies, C. crocuta spelaea, of the spotted hyena (Kurten 1957, 1968; Turner 1984; Werdelin and Solounias 1991) or a different species (C. spelaea; Soergel 1937; Musil 1962; Markova et al. 1995; Baryshnikov 1999). Although some substructure is present with monophyletic clades with either some Eurasian or some African hyena sequences (figs. 1 and 2), neither of the two groups... Spotted Hyena Dispersal Based on the topology of both the network and the phylogenetic tree, a panmictic African-Eurasian spotted hyena population is unlikely, as under such a scenario, we should not have found mtDNA clades belonging exclusively to either Eurasian (B and D) or African hyenas (C). Moreover, none of the nine haplotypes is shared between Africa and Eurasia even in clade A, which contains mtDNA sequences from both continents. Thus, it is likely that Eurasian and African populations were connected only t... See full list on academic.oup.com The phylogeographic distribution of mtDNA haplotypes indicates three migration events from Africa to Eurasia for spotted hyenas and a recent habitat expansion of striped hyenas across Africa and Asia from a small African population. The data also indicate rapid expansions of the geographical range in both species. However, extant spotted hyenas in ... See full list on academic.oup.com *Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany; Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley; Institute of Palaeontology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Institut de Prhistoire et de Gologie du Quaternaire (C.B.), Universit Bordeaux 1, Talence Cedex, France; Archeosphere, Domaine de H... See full list on academic.oup.com The spotted hyena, Crocuta crocuta, is a highly social carnivore with several unique traits showing advanced social behavior. Studies of the brain of living spotted hyenas show that the anterior cerebrum is enlarged, a feature linked to sociality. It is not known, however, when sociality evolved in spotted hyenas, and its evolutionary context is therefore unknown. This is important to ... The spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), also known as the laughing hyena, [3] is a hyena species, currently classed as the sole extant member of the genus Crocuta, native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is listed as being of least concern by the IUCN due to its widespread range and large numbers estimated between 27,000 and 47,000 individuals. [1] The species is, however, experiencing declines outside ... C. crocuta - the spotted or laughing hyena Hyaena hyaena - the striped hyena; medium-sized carnivore with vertical black stripes on sides of body (Wagner 2013) H. brunnea - the brown hyena or standwolf; medium-sized, long-haired scavenger (Mills 2013) Proteles cristata - the aardwolf; small, termite-feeding specialist How and how well do group-living animals respond to social and environmental change? To address this question, we study the evolution of social behaviour and behavioural and evolutionary processes shaping the life history and fitness of group-living animals using an entire population of wild spotted hyenas (eight groups, more than 2500 individuals) that we have been monitoring since ...

C. crocuta - the spotted or laughing hyena Hyaena hyaena - the striped hyena; medium-sized carnivore with vertical black stripes on sides of body (Wagner 2013) H. brunnea - the brown hyena or standwolf; medium-sized, long-haired scavenger (Mills 2013) Proteles cristata - the aardwolf; small, termite-feeding specialist

However, the exact origin and evolution- recent extinction of this form provides an opportunity to ary history of living spotted hyenas remains unresolved characterize the genetic diversity...