Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Linda Wertheimer. Now, even if you've never heard a laughing hyena in the wild, you might recognize this hyena. Mr. CHEECH MARIN (Actor): (as Banzai) It's ...

A Hyena's giggle is not actually laughter, but a sound of frustration. New research found a way to distinguish individual hyenas based on the peculiarities of their, well, let's call them fighting ...

The giggling sounds of a hyena contain important information about the animal's status, say scientists. In the first study to decipher the hyena's so-called "laugh", they have shown that the pitch of ...

April 23, 2009 -- Deteriorating screws in bridges, fish that listen in the dark, medical devices that use sound to treat disease, the detected comeback of a long-gone whale, the sound of hyenas, ...

Their high-pitched menacing cackle is nothing to boast about. But it seems that is exactly what the hyena is doing when its distinctive laugh echoes across the savannah. Scientists have found a ...

Have you ever heard the phrase "laughing hyenas"? Do they really laugh? In a word, no. There are four kinds of hyenas _ aardwolf, brown, spotted and striped _ but only the spotted hyena makes sounds ...

Spotted hyenas, the social, carnivorous creatures often referred to as "laughing hyenas," live across Africa and east to India. Their laughing sound, however, "has nothing to do with hyenas having a ...

Sy Montgomery thinks hyenas have gotten a bad reputation. They are, it turns out, great hunters, not the skulking scavengers of "The Lion King." They are also very social creatures and express ...

Hyenas use a "laughing language" to communicate with each other, scientists have learned. The animals are famous for their manic giggling, especially around a kill. But although they might appear to ...