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Wikipedia
Spotted Hyena (genus Crocuta)

hyena species are efficient hunters and scavengers.[citation needed] They have extremely strong jaws in relation to their body size and have a very powerful digestive system with highly acidic fluids, making them capable of eating and digesting their entire prey, including skin, teeth, horns, bones . Hair and hooves are usually regurgitated. Since they have no aversion to and readily eat carrion, their digestive system deals very well with bacteria.

The haunting laughter-like calls of the spotted hyena inspired the idea in local cultures that they could imitate human voices and call their victims by name. Hyenas are also associated with divination and sometimes thought of as tools of demons and witches. In African folklore, witches and sorcerers are thought to ride hyenas, or even turn into them.

African attitudes toward hyenas are little better than those held in the European cultures. The Bouda is a mythical tribe reputed to house members able to transform into hyenas. Belief in "Werehyenas" is so entrenched within the traditional lore of the Bornu people of north-eastern Nigeria, that their language even contains a special word bultungin which translates as "I change myself into a hyena".

Early naturalists thought hyenas were hermaphrodites or commonly practiced homosexuality, largely due to the female spotted hyena's unique urogenital system. According to early writings such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Physiologus, the hyena continually changed its sex and nature from male to female and back again. In Paedagogus, Clement of Alexandria noted that the hyena (along with the hare) was "quite obsessed with sexual intercourse." Many Europeans associated the hyena with sexual deformity, prostitution, and deviant sexual behavior.