Category:Hyena Friends

A list of all Friends based on carnivorous feliform mammals representing the family Hyaenidae, commonly known as hyenas. There are four extant species of hyena, endemic to the African continent, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and central Asia, but many extinct hyena species exist that ranged across these territories as well as Europe, Eurasia, and even North America. Hyenas are well-known for a variety of unique traits, including their diverse and distinctive calls—most famously the "laughing" of the spotted hyena— and their bone-crunching bites that aid them in scavenging carcasses, save for the insectivorous aardwolf which does not eat carrion nor crack bones.

While they appear and behave in a manner fitting of a canid, hyenas are in fact more closely related to cats than they are to dogs. This is not to say that they are especially closely related to cats, either; hyenas are neither cats nor dogs, their closest relatives being the viverrids and the mongooses.