Many people with siblings will remember playfighting with them when they were young. They will also likely remember the panic of hitting too hard and pleading with the other not to tell mom.
These hyena cubs were under their mom’s careful protection, but that didn’t stop them from getting extra scrappy with each other, and causing her to intervene in their game.
Jenna van der Vegte caught the footage of these hyenas, and sent it to Latest Sightings. Regardless of the animal, a fundamental part of childhood experience remains the same.
Roadside Rabble
Despite the vulnerability of travelling with two cubs, the small hyena family had perched themselves for a rest on the side of the road. It looked like it was just the three of them, with the rest of the clan being nowhere in sight.
Due to their small size and inability to defend themselves, cubs and other young animals tend to make for easy prey for rival predators. A passing lion or leopard would think nothing of snapping up one of these two on their way past.
This makes raising animals in the wild particularly stressful for the parents, as the slightest lapse in concentration or attention can result in the loss of one of more children to a dangerous competitor in the region.
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Sibling Squabble
On top of that, these hyena cubs weren’t being particularly stealthy. Playing games and wrestling is a natural part of growing up for these cubs, and it’s essential for their development.
Competing with each other in this way would help these cubs develop their strength, and learn their place in the social hierarchy of the group. Testing what they can get away with lets them know what is acceptable behavior and what is not.
But wrestling isn’t a quiet activity, and any hungry lions, dogs, or leopards in the area would hear them scuffling with each other. It would have been another important lesson for the cubs, but thankfully the biggest threat to them was each other.
Rough Play
With their mouths as one of their main “tools”, nipping at each other was always going to be part of the game, but this one turned sour quickly when one of the cubs latched onto the nose of the other and refused to let go.
It’s not clear why not, perhaps it was some kind of predator instinct kicking in to make sure squirmy prey doesn’t escape, but the poor afflicted cub was crying out in pain as it tried to free itself.
The mom tried to step in immediately to break up the one-sided fight, but the attacking cub just wasn’t letting go as its sibling dragged it down the bank at the side of the road in its attempt to escape.
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Exhausting Children
Eventually, and with mom’s intervention, the cubs let each other go and tumbled away down the hill, likely going immediately back to playing their game.
She stood and watched them go, her actions limited to helping make sure they both stayed healthy, rather than scolding them for playing too roughly with each other.