This is my final column and I\u2019ve loved introducing you to the extraordinary diversity of the female experience. But I have saved the most badass till last: the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta).<\/p>\n
Few animals have been more misunderstood than the hyena \u2013 historically described as a cowardly, grave-robbing brute, of indeterminable sexuality. According to Pliny the Elder, the Roman author of the world\u2019s first animal encyclopedia, the hyena is \u201cmale during one year, and a female the next\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pliny\u2019s sexual mythologising is a result of the female hyena\u2019s unconventional genitalia \u2013 a near-perfect facsimile of the male\u2019s. The Crocuta\u2019s clitoris extends 17cm and is shaped and positioned exactly like a penis. She even gets erections, which form an integral part of her greeting displays. Females also sport a false scrotum, where the labia have fused and filled with fatty tissue. One anatomist declared males and females so similar that sex could only be determined by \u201cpalpation of the scrotum\u201d \u2013 a rather foolhardy practice on an animal famous for its bone-crunching bite<\/a>. I\u2019d rather hazard a guess.<\/p>\n With no external vaginal opening, female hyenas must urinate, copulate and give birth through their multi-tasking \u2018pseudo-penis\u2019.<\/a> None of this is easy. Sex requires the male to penetrate a flaccid clitoris \u2013 a bit like trying to have sex with a sock. Birth is even more treacherous, like squeezing a cantaloupe melon out of a hosepipe. Fatalities, involving cub or mum, are not uncommon.<\/p>\n It is easy to see how the sight of a \u2018male\u2019 hyena giving birth through his penis led to the hermaphrodite myth. But it\u2019s less clear why the hyena\u2019s pudendum would take such a peculiar evolutionary path. We do know that spotted hyenas are highly intelligent animals, living in complex clan structures where females rule the roost. Their social system is matriarchal and extremely cooperative, with females working together to hunt and raise their young. But they are not just scavengers<\/a>. They are exceptional predators, too, responsible for hunting 95 per cent of their food. They use teamwork, patience and intelligence to bring down prey much larger than themselves \u2013 such as water buffalo \u2013 by working in unison. Studies have even shown that lions<\/a> scavenge more kills from hyenas than vice-versa.<\/p>\n