White Rhinoceros - one of "The Big Five"

On Safari in Mala Mala

The enigmatic Spotted Hyena - an experiment in developmental biology

This hyena was hanging around under the tree where the leopard had stashed his impala for safe keeping. Maybe the hyena will get lucky, should the impala fall?

A remarkable feature of Spotted Hyenas (but not Striped or Brown Hyenas; the Spotted Hyena is the only mammal known to sport such an anomaly!) is the elongated clitoris of females, roughly the size of the male's penis, through which she urinates, mates and gives birth! Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_hyena

According to Stephen Glickman, an integrative biologist at UC Berkeley, birth of a 3-pound hyena cub is a cringe-inducing process - imagine pushing a golf ball through a soda straw - makes the downside of the female hyena's strange anatomy abundantly clear (Greg Miller, Science, 319: pp. 722-723, February 8, 2008). Hyena moms typically have two cubs in a litter, and about 60% of cubs born to a first time mom are stillborn. Amazing!

Visiting the ladies of Mala Mala

On the trail of a leopard with an impala stash in a tree

Incredible that a leopard could scale such a flimsy tree to stash his impala meal away from stalking hyenas.