Here is a problem with hyenas. They look, behave and laugh exactly like the stereotype hyena. In fact, very few animals live up to their stereotype as quickly and precisely as hyenas.
Not that I have seen them personally at great length except once years ago, but they always seem to be conspiring and plotting in a particularly malicious manner.
I was thinking all this while watching an extraordinary BBC Earth clip as part of its Dynasties series. It is a single lion, named Red by the dulcet David Attenborough, who accidentally walks into a pack of 20 hyenas. Quickly enough, the lion understands the potentially fatal danger it has walked into.
You can see it in its eyes, which are both scared and defiant. You can also see what living in the wild really means. What we humans call wild life is actually just life for these animals. They make no distinction between wild and life.
At one level, the fact that even 20 hyenas with their rather powerful jaws have to be so cautious in approaching a single lion highlights everything that we celebrate in a lion—majestic courage and self-assurance. On another though, you can see how worried the lion looks as the hyenas, with their sinister, mocking laughter, occasionally bite it. The three and half-minute long clip tells me yet again how ill-equipped the vast majority of the human race has become because of evolution to deal with an encounter like this one.
Such survivalist violence unfolds on the continent of Africa every day. It is a constant battle among the animals stacked up like a pyramid with the lion being reputedly on top. However, that position is often not guaranteed as illustrated by this clip.
I strongly recommend you watch it only be happy that most of us do not have to face this as a matter of routine.