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"No dogs here! Hyenas are not members of the dog or cat families. Instead, they are so unique that they have a family all their own, Hyaenidae. There are four members of the Hyaenidae family: the striped hyena, the “giggly” spotted hyena, the brown hyena, and the aardwolf (it’s a hyena, not a wolf). They play an important role in their native habitats: cleanup crew!"
- San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
"Although phylogenetically closer to felines and viverrids, as part of suborder Feliformia, hyenas are behaviourally and morphologically similar to canids in several elements due to convergent evolution; both hyenas and canines are non-arboreal, cursorial hunters that catch prey with their teeth rather than claws. Both eat food quickly and may store it, and their calloused feet with large, blunt, nonretractable claws are adapted for running and making sharp turns. However, hyenas' grooming, scent marking, defecation habits, mating and parental behavior are consistent with the behavior of other feliforms.[4]"
- Wikipedia
"Are Hyenas Dogs or Cats?"
"Neither! Hyenas are hyenas. They aren’t dogs and they aren’t cats, they’re a unique family of mammals, Hyaenidae. Hyenas are more closely related to cats than to dogs, but they are still quite distinct, with their own evolutionary lineage."
"Hyenas in the Fossil Record"
"The Hyena has been around for a long time. At one time, they ranged over much of the Earth and there were two distinct types of hyena, dog-like hyenas and bone-crushing hyenas. Each type had many different species and filled different ecological niches.
Hyenas are older than canines, but when the first species of canid began to spread they quickly started to outcompete the dog-like hyenas. All but one of the modern hyenas are bone-crushing hyenas. At one time, though dog-like hyenas were incredibly common, with some species outnumbering all other carnivores in their habitat. In addition to the arrival of canid species, severe climate change drove the extinction of most of the dog like hyena species."
- Wildlife Informer
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