Female hyena has last laugh
QUESTION Hyenas are ruled by a matriarchy. How does this work? Are there other matriarchies in nature?
The social structure of the spotted hyena ( Crocuta crocuta), also known as the laughing hyena, is unusual in that every clan is ruled by an alpha female.
The hyena is a highly successful animal, being the most common large carnivore in Africa. It’s highly adaptable: it will hunt but also scavenge, and has the ability to eat and digest skin and bone.
Larger and more aggressive than the males, it’s the spotted hyena females that dominate their social groups, each of which may have up to 80 members.
The clans have a strict power structure with the adult males at the bottom. When feeding on a communal carcass, the adult males eat last. When a male kills, he must gorge quickly before female clan members shove him aside.
In most species, males battle it out for sexual dominance. Male hyenas must first battle to enter the clan, then live a life of subservience until they’re accepted by a female after one or two years.
This process is known as endurance rivalry, where the male willing to take the most abuse gets to mate.
A highly unusual aspect of female hyena physiology is that their genitals, despite their totally different function, so closely resemble those of a male that it is hard to tell them apart.
Due to this, for centuries hyenas were suspected of being hermaphrodites and witches’ steeds or were-beasts.
Anne Gillingham, Salisbury, Wilts. MATrIArchIes are more common in nature than you might suppose. The social structure of a beehive is that of a matriarchal family headed by an allpowerful queen.
The queen has a potential lifespan of three years and may continually lay eggs to establish and maintain a colony of between 10,000 and 80,000, only a few hundred of which are drones (male bees).
similar to bees, ants live in colonies lead by a queen, who focuses on mating and breeding while the others do the work.
elephants live in a complex matriarchal society in which the oldest, largest female is the matriarch of a herd numbering between eight and 100 elephants.
When a calf is born, it is raised and protected by the whole matriarchal herd. Males leave the family between the ages of 12 and 15 to lead solitary lives or live temporarily with other males.
Killer whale pods are based on the lineage of the mother. sons and daughters travel with their mothers even after they are fully grown, forming strongly matriarchal whale societies.
Naked mole rat colonies, which may have 20 to 300 members, are led by a dominant queen. she chooses the largest, toughest males to mate with several times a year and can produce around seven offspring every two months. Mark Finch, Hindhead, Surrey.
QUESTION In his diary, Samuel Pepys writes of a song he wrote called Beauty Retire. Has it been recorded?
sAMueL PePYs did not write the words to Beauty retire, but set eight lines of sir William Davenant’s opera The siege Of rhodes Part 2 (1663) to music.
Part 1 was performed in 1656 during the Interregnum (special permission had to be granted from cromwell’s Puritan government) and is considered to be the earliest english opera. sadly, the score has been lost.
Pepys (1633-1703) was a music lover and enlisted the help of John Birchensha (Berkenshaw in the diary) in composing and playing music. he refers to six songs for which he composed the melodies, another being It Is Decreed, set to words by the playwright and poet Ben Jonson.
sadly, the only melody that remains is that of Beauty retire. Pepys is holding the score to his song in his 1666 portrait by John hayls, which hangs in London’s National Portrait Gallery. The song goes: Beauty retire! Thou dost my pitty move! Believe my pitty, and then trust my love! At first I thought her by our Prophet sent As a reward for valours toils, More worth than all my fathers spoils: And now, she is become my punishment. But thou are just, O Pow’r Divine! With new and painfull arts Of study’d warr I break the hearts Of half the world, and she breaks mine.
The melody is spare in contrast with the florid French and Italian arias of the period. Pepys was pleased with the piece and mentioned it several times in his diary, including: ‘After dinner I did give him my song, Beauty retire, which he has often desired of me, and without flattery I think is a very good song.’
There is a recording on the small label saydisc, which specialises in traditional music. saydisc The Musical Life Of samuel Pepys features Beauty retire with richard Wistreich singing and robin Jeffrey on the theorbo, a large plucked instrument of the lute family with an extended neck. Simon Locke, Newcastle upon Tyne. QUESTION What sort of beer was served in Wild West saloons? FurTher to the earlier answer, ours is the only country that commonly refers to lighter coloured beer as lager (the German word for store). The first so-called uK lager was by Tennent’s of scotland.
The 1955 western Wichita, starring Joel Mccrea and Vera Miles, has a sign outside a saloon advertising Buffalo Lager. This is an anomaly as the term was never used in that sense in the 19th century, and most certainly was not used in the u.s.
Mark S. Bradshaw, Billingham, Co. Durham.
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