Chapter 98 Giant Hyena
Just because this hyena's body shape has changed, it feels that it can compete with the lion in front of it. Because it seemed that this lion was not an adult lion, but a half-grown lion cub.
The coyote saw that it was no match for the little lion, so it prepared to run away. It was still thinking that as long as it escaped, Chu Ye might not come to chase it.
But how could Chu Ye be willing to let it escape! So, Chu Ye started to pursue again.
This coyote originally thought that even if he could not defeat Chu Ye. But if you want to escape, it shouldn't be too difficult.
But things were not as he thought. When the coyote tried to escape again, Chu Ye quickly caught up with it.
This hyena just ran forward for a few dozen meters before Chu Ye caught up with him. Because this coyote has been injured and the injury is very serious, it actually has no strength to escape.
After Chu Ye caught up with the coyote, he bit the coyote's neck again. This coyote had no power to fight back now. It allowed Chu Ye to bite its neck, and it could only struggle, letting out some miserable screams.
Chu Ye was not polite now and kept biting the neck of the coyote. Its teeth soon penetrated into the throat of the coyote.
This coyote finally struggled for a while and then stopped moving. Because it had already been killed by Chu Ye.
'Hmph, I can actually kill such a big hyena. It seems that my fighting ability is already very impressive. '
Chu Ye looked at the huge hyena in front of him, and he became more confident in his fighting power.
Originally, Chu Ye was now about the size of a leopard. And, it's also very strong. If it hadn't looked like a lion, other animals would have mistaken it for an adult leopard.
After all, Chu Ye's appearance is different from that of an ordinary lion. There was a white stripe on Chu Ye's back, extending from his neck to his tail.
Chu Ye is a super little lion with the power of a secret badger. Now its size has mutated again, and it is already larger than an ordinary lion cub. His current size may be smaller than his mother Lisa.
Chu Ye's size is already much larger than that of Xiao Hei, Xiao Maohuahua and Meimei. His size is at least twice the size of these little lions.
'Well, since I killed this coyote, let me have a taste of what this coyote feels like! '
When Chu Ye thought of this, he wanted to eat the hyena in front of him. After all, he hadn't eaten for several days and his stomach was growling with hunger!
But just when Chu Ye wanted to eat the coyote in front of him, an animal cry suddenly came from the distance.
'oh! ——'
As soon as Chu Ye heard this voice, he was stunned for a moment. However, Chu Ye immediately judged that this should be the sound of a hyena.
For Chu Ye, he is already very familiar with the sound of hyenas. After all, he has fought with hyenas several times.
'Hmph, isn't it the hyena that wants to come over and grab food from me? I'm not afraid of them. When I was a little lion, I wasn't afraid of them. What's more, now that I'm about the same size as an adult leopard, I can easily defeat many hyenas. '
Although Chu Ye heard the hyena's cry, he was not afraid at all and continued to eat. After all, his body has grown up and his strength has increased a lot. How could he take a dog like a hyena in his eyes?
Although Chu Ye heard the hyena's cry, it just continued to eat the hyena and didn't take the cry seriously at all.
But what happened next made Chu Ye feel that his brain was a little weak again. Because when Chu Ye was eating, a huge animal suddenly rushed in front of Chu Ye.
Chu Ye was startled just by looking at this animal. Because he felt that this was an animal he had never seen before.
This animal looks a bit like a hyena. But it is much larger than a hyena, almost as big as a male lion. It looks really scary. It doesn't look like a real animal at all.
Chu Ye was confused when he saw this animal. Because this animal is much taller than Chu Ye, it looks like a terrifying monster.
'What kind of animal is this? How come I haven't seen it before? Chu Ye looked at the monster in front of him and felt very puzzled.
This monster came to Chu Ye and looked at Chu Ye in surprise. Obviously, it was also a little afraid of Chu Ye. Because Chu Ye also looks like a ferocious animal and is not easy to offend.
Chu Ye saw that this monster did not dare to attack him, so he took the opportunity to take a good look at this monster.
After Chu Ye scanned the monster with his own eyes, he quickly knew what kind of monster it was.
'ah! It turns out to be a real hyena! 'Chu Ye now knows that the monster in front of him is a hyena.
'But how come this hyena is so big! This is too terrible! The hyenas have grown to be as big as lions, which is really strange. '
Although Chu Ye knew that the monster in front of him was a hyena. But it didn't understand how this hyena could grow so big.
'Hey, what's going on? Could it be that this hyena is a throwback to its ancestors? '
Chu Ye looked at the giant hyena in front of him, and suddenly thought of a large prehistoric carnivore - the giant hyena.
The giant hyena is an extinct, large and terrifying carnivore. Its skull is very thick, with thick and expanded nasal bones, strong zygomatic arches, a raised dome-shaped forehead, and huge cheek teeth.
It is estimated to weigh more than 380 kilograms, four times the size of the largest African spotted hyena in modern times, and six to seventy kilograms heavier than modern African lions. Although the head and appearance of hyenas are more similar to dogs or wolves, they are actually a member of the cat-type suborder and are closely related to civets.
Early scholars estimated that the giant hyena weighed 210 kilograms, which seems to have been a serious underestimate. Careful studies by scholars indicate that they may weigh as much as an adult brown bear. Modern African spotted hyenas typically weigh 70 kilograms.
The weight of the ancient giant hyena is estimated to be more than 300 kilograms, the body length (including tail) is about 2.5 meters, and the shoulder height is about 120CM. Equivalent to the weight of an adult brown bear. Such large carnivores were unusual in any era.
Spotted hyenas are found in the open grasslands south of the Sahara Desert in Africa. It is the largest species of hyena in existence and the most famous one in the hyena family. Especially the extremely terrifying screams are similar to the sound of human laughter.
"Scientific Bulletin" reported fossil osteological evidence of active hunting behavior of giant hyenas, showing that the skull of a female Rhinoceros victoria showed signs of being attacked by a giant hyena.
Comparing the aggressive behavior of extant spotted hyenas against African black rhinoceros, the healed wounds of the female greater labial rhinoceros are interpreted to be the result of attacks by giant hyenas from the late Miocene.
The paleoecological hunting behavior of giant hyenas has long been the focus of widespread attention, but clear evidence indicating the hunting habits of this carnivore has not been found before.
This specimen of Victoria's Great Rhinoceros provides evidence that giant hyenas had hunting behaviors similar to those of living spotted hyenas.
Although its specialized bone-eating skull and tooth morphology give the giant hyena a powerful ability to process bones in scavengers, it is still an active predator. The research material was produced from the late Miocene red clay of the Liushu Formation at the Shuanggongbei site in the Linxia Basin, Gansu Province.
Based on the biochronology of mammalian fossils and paleomagnetic dating data, the geological age of the Shuanggongbei site is the early late Miocene, about 92 million years old.
Living spotted hyenas are often thought of as mere scavengers, however, detailed research has revealed that they are actually very efficient predators.
The feeding behavior of fossil carnivores is poorly understood, but the giant hyenas of Eurasia are among the most interesting fossil carnivores. There are still many unresolved questions about the hunting behavior of the giant hyena: Is it an active and versatile hunter like the spotted hyena? Or primarily a scavenger?
This Rhinoceros specimen is a complete skull with a mandible. Moderate wear on all teeth and a small lower second incisor indicate that this skull belongs to an adult female of Macrorrhinus victoria.
The specimen has a distinct scar on the upper right orbital rim, and comparison with the left side of the skull clearly shows the loss of bone tissue. In this area, the bone has been deeply pitted and partially flaked off.
The curvature of the healed scar is quite steep, indicating that a curved object caused the scar. The scar has a rough, granular healing surface with replacement of bone tissue with fibrocartilage. The undulating characteristics of the thick layer indicate the pathological phenomenon of healing, followed by the formation of new bone tissue at the edge of the scar.
Further observation showed that there were signs of Harvard system regeneration in the healed area, indicating that the injury did not cause the death of the rhino.
The size of the upper canine teeth of the carnivore can be inferred based on the corresponding traces of the scars. It was found that the upper canine teeth of the giant hyena fossil unearthed in Shuanggongbei almost perfectly matched the bite position of the large labial rhinoceros specimen.
In particular, the measured width of the canines matched the scars studied exactly, suggesting that the wound may have been a canine mark inflicted by a massive hyena.
The canine-shaped lower incisors of Victoria's Great Labial Rhinoceros have a straight main blade ridge edge, so this arc of scar cannot be produced, and the abrasive surface from the incisors to the alveolus has exposed the dentine part, and its lower The hardness makes it difficult to cause damage to bones.
These circumstances rule out the possibility that intraspecific competition between different individuals of Vernon's Rhinoceros caused this scar.
Sabre-toothed tiger is the second largest carnivore in the three-toed horse fauna in the Linxia Basin. However, this gouged scar on the upper edge of the rhino's orbit is much wider than the canine width of Sabre-toothed tiger, which has long and thin upper canines. Nor could it withstand the unpredictable force of a fighting or running rhinoceros, so a saber-toothed tiger could not have been the attacker.
The morphological characteristics and direction of the scars on this large labial rhinoceros skull indicate that the hyena attacked from the front left side, and that the scar was caused by the hyena's upper right canine tooth.
According to the measurement of the distance between the canine teeth of the giant hyena and the recovery of the muscle thickness of the head of the labial rhinoceros, the bite marks of the corresponding upper left canine and two lower canines of the giant hyena should be located on the facial muscles of the labial rhinoceros, so no damage was caused to the skeleton. The mark of harm.
The giant hyena is one of the largest known schizopod carnivores in the fossil record, weighing over 380 kilograms based on body proportions similar to other hyenas. The powerful giant hyena's dentition is undoubtedly hyena-shaped, showing its perfect bone-crushing ability.
For such a large carnivore, rhino-targeted hunting or scavenging behavior is possible, and is likely to be exactly the same as that of the highly opportunistic spotted hyena. Furthermore, the gigantic size of the giant hyena gives it the ability to hunt down sizable mammals, including giraffes, rhinos, and the occasional elephant.
This explanation is theoretically consistent with the statistical observation of a critical mass of 21.5 kg for carnivores. Carnivores less than this weight usually hunt prey equal to 45% of their own body weight or less, while carnivores larger than this weight tend to hunt prey. Prey that is larger than one's own body weight is the result of energy constraints.
The above examples suggest that giant hyenas should have been the apex predators of their time, occupying the top of the nutritional pyramid and occupying ecological niches that were later replaced by big cats. Of course, this undoubtedly does not contradict their ability to break bones and scavenge.
Based on the evidence of attacking large prey, combined with its fragmentary skull-tooth morphology and very large body size, it is suggested that the giant hyena should be a highly versatile apex predator with relatively high prowess in the Late Miocene of the Linxia Basin. Modern spotted hyenas are even more invulnerable on the African savanna.
Chu Ye looked at the huge hyena in front of him, and he suddenly thought of some information about the prehistoric monster giant hyena.
'Hey, could it be said that the giant hyena in front of you is a prehistoric animal that traveled to the prairie? Chu Ye looked at the giant hyena in front of him and began to think wildly.
However, Chu Yeyang immediately rejected his idea. After all, there's something iffy about prehistoric animals traveling to the present day.
'It cannot be that prehistoric animals traveled to modern times. It may be the result of mutations in modern animals. '
Chu Ye thought about the change in the size of the coyote just now. And his body size has also increased a lot. This giant hyena Liu Ming is not a prehistoric giant hyena that traveled to modern times, but the size of modern hyenas has mutated.
Chu Ye looked at the huge hyena in front of him, which made him feel a little scared. After all, this giant hyena is almost the same size as a male lion. How can it not scare a little lion like Chu Ye?
