Hungry hyena demonstrates his powerful jaws as he eats his meal

Hyenas are formidable animals that have been viewed as frightening and ominous, but their role in the ecosystems across most of Africa is a very crucial one. Most closely related to felines, they share many of their characteristics with the cat family. But they share many behavioural characteristics with canines, or the dog family.
Hyenas are ground dwellers, never venturing into trees for shelter or to sleep. They also catch pursued prey using their jaws, as a canine would, instead of their claws as felines do. Agile and powerful, they are very capable hunters. Their ability to work in packs increases their efficiency greatly.
During evolution, 10-14 million years ago, the hyena split off into two groups, one being the dog-like hyena and the other being the bone-crushing hyenas. Climate changes and the arrival of other dog species forced the dog-like hyenas into extinction while the bone-crushing hyenas survived and became the dominant scavengers. Their primary food source was large herbivore carcasses that were taken down by the large sabre-toothed cats. Originally, these hyenas were enormous, growing to over 200kg (440lbs) and having sufficient jaw strength to splinter elephant bones. The hyenas that roam the plains today have the ability to kill large dogs with a single bite to the neck. It is no wonder that even a full grown lion respects a pack of hyenas enough to leave a kill if there are enough of them.
This hyena lives at the Toronto zoo in Canada. He has been given some meat for lunch and he bites and tears at it with great efficiency. The large teeth and strong jaws make short work of any carcass.
Paleontologists have studied fossils and have found evidence that hyenas readily attacked and killed humans. Human remains found in Alaska coincide with the extinction of the cave hyenas in Siberia, suggesting that predation by hyenas was what caused humans to be unable to cross the Bering Strait earlier. Although hyena attacks on humans is rare now, it was not always the case.
Primarily scavengers, hyenas occupy a critical niche in nature, feeding on rotting flesh of the kills of other animals, as well as the dying and the weak.