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Groaning and Laughing

Category: General | Date: Jul 20 2008 | By: Seamus

I’ve been conducting fieldwork recently, trying to catch up on a few things. The past few days have seen me ponder how to spell hyaena / hyena. I suspect this klip in die bos might elicit some intercontinental mud-slinging (”we speak real english, you don’t” and “You guys are so stuck up. Why don’t you make road signs in Spanish like we do?”)

So. To provide some diversion, do have a look at this story on hyaena vocalisations. It looks to me like fairly basic research that is long overdue for these interesting animals.


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2 Responses to “Groaning and Laughing”

dandelion, on 20 Jul 2008

The article spurred an immediate need for further (entirely web-based, from the discomfort of my living room) research, and I got entirely caught up in “Who’s Laughing Now” published in the Smithsonian in May that discussed hye(a)na socialization to a greater extent…but I am still wondering, are there changes between the vocalisations these animals make within their clans, and the sounds they create when they are interacting with other hye(a)nas outside of their clan?

Article: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/hyena.html?c=y&page=1

Wim, on 21 Jul 2008

Actually that’s quite an interesting question dandelion, presumably their grammar becomes somewhat more formal? A “vous” for their “tu”? Who knows…
By extension, can Ethiopian (or should that be Aethiopian?) Spotted Hyaena understand the whooping of Namibian Spotted Hyaena given that the underlying grammar must be similar, or is their accent too damned thick?
Does the Striped Hyaena in Egypt (Aegypt?) sing in harmony with the Brown Hyaena of Moz(c?)ambique. Do they sing at all?
Does anyone anywhere understand anything thing the Aardwolf (Ardwolf?) whitters?
Oh potato potato, say I…

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