Clay gets her comeuppance.

Feeling MUCH better this morning, ate a full breakfast, but still feeling a little weak/under the weather. Did not go on obs this morning. Just not feverish anymore yay. Bit of sore throat for some reason. Guts still a little rumbly but I am considerably improved, hopefully I will feel well enough to go out on obs! Feeling behind on work, still have a transcription to do and have to go back and edit several others as well as double check an alien male against males from other clans, update the cub list, and also today is the day we upload tracks from the GPS units and backup the computer, AND do car checks. So I hate that all I feel like doing is being flopped out in bed.

A little more to stay about happy zebra the night before last night now that I am feeling well enough for detailed writing! Got to watch the happy zebra hyenas have a good play-boat! Arbalet and Eremet showed up at the den, they are Pike’s subadult daughters, older sister to Clay. Clay is an adorable little cub, Pike’s youngest and therefore currently first in line for the throne. Julia calls her a JAP, jewish-american princess because she is a lazy spoiled little cub! She is bigger than euch and bac who are a little older than her and has a distinctive reddish coat. She is usually the last one out of the den when we arrive and one of the last to investigate new objects (along with moji, the oldest cub). It seems like the calmer cubs and also less inquisitive, maybe being inquisitive is a high-risk/high-payoff strategy that works better for lower ranking animals? Anyway no mom’s are at the den, just Clay’s older sisters and everyone starts running around like crazy and suddenly the game is: get clay! Hilarious, because usually she is the cub that can play bite and pester anyone and get away with it because her mom will back her up. To use Wes’ words she was at one point “drawn and quartered” by four cubs, eremet (the rougher but subordinate sister) had her by the scruff of the neck and other cubs were all tugging on her in different directions. Poor clay! It sometimes surprising me how hard they will pull on each other’s skin without drawing blood, although even young cubs will sometimes show up one session with a good ear nick or notch, presumably from rough play. Pike’s lineage is weapons and she currently has four daughters (all girls!) the youngest being clay, followed by Arb and Erem, and the oldest is Boom who has her first two cubs at the den, both a little older than Clay:  JRog and Swag. Boom’s lineage is “things pirate’s say” and her cubs full names are Jolly Roger and Scallywag who are Pike’s grandcubs. These two cubs are often the first up to the car and they will try and lick/bite your elbow if you’re not careful!

A recent documentary that I watched “eternal enemies” about hyenas and lions talked about how hyenas will commit siblicide, which may or may not be true, and also that when a cub is moved from its natal den to the communal den “they will have to fight for their lives” which is almost certainly not true. I, nor anyone I’ve talked to, has seen real aggression between cubs. They may play rough but it is very clearly distinguishable from real aggression. And cub duos that we see at the den certainly display no aggression towards each other and are in fact usually friendlier and closer with each other than with unrelated cubs. Once a cub duo graduates it is also common to see them together, such as Arb and Erem showing up at the communal den together even though they are both almost full grown. However hyenas have no qualms about eating their dead, and if a mother does not have enough milk for two, or the other cub dies before coming to the communal den for other reasons there would be nothing to stop the sibling from feeding on it. A mother does not always give birth to two cubs, so a singleton does not mean that its sibling did not live. Hyenas have been documented to give birth to one, two, or three cubs. 

Wes saw Trumane at the Hatch den in south territory yesterday which is a good sign for that really being the current den because Trumane is Boyk’s mom. Boyk is the youngest cub in south clan, the only one that is really too young to have graduated and who we have seen no sign of since the rain’s stopped and the tracks dried up enough for us to get into south territory. I’ve gotten so familiar with all the different hyenas in happy zebra and in north clan but I am only barely acquainted with south clan and I don’t think I’ve seen any south hyenas more than once except for Marten and her cub Korben, away from the den but still nursing.