Spurred by the thread on Pit Bulls and Wolves, I thought I’d take this idea a little further and make the fight strictly WILD.
Even though it is highly unlikely a Hyena and a Wolverine would ever come in contact, suppose they did, and decided to fight to the death, who would win?
My money is on the Wolverine. Mainly because wolverines are known for being highly tenacious, strong, overtly aggressive, and extremely vicious. Hyenas, from what I know, are not as tenacious, and not a vicious, lending them only the strength and crunching power…
So what say you? Would the wily wolverine, get laughed at by the hyena, or eaten for dinner?
What? Not that kind of North American Wolverine? Oh, right … Spotted hyaena cubs fight each other before they’ve even opened their eyes; that species gives virtually nothing away to the wolverine in terms of sheer aggression. And, as Cisco points out, the hyaena is eight times the size. Perhaps the smaller hyaena species (brown or striped, if memory serves) might be a slightly more even match - even so, my money would be on the hyaena.
Or there’s the aardwolf, though I understand opinions differ as to whether it is a member of the hyaena family or not. If it counts … the aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) is a miserable-looking beast that eats termites, a wolverine would probably chew it up in short order.
This is why I thought this would be a good match. On a recent Discovery channel documentary on the NA Wolverine, it was said they can bring down animals out weighing them more than 10 times, and have a coat thick enough to withstand quite a beating. Frontierman often avoided them due to their overly aggressive nature.
I’ll concede a hyena may win, but I bet it would be a very good fight.
How pissed off the wolverine was would also be a major factor.
I saw a documentary, years ago, about wolves and caribou. In one sequence, the wolf pack had killed a caribou and were settling down for a meal, when a wolverine came charging at them. No fight, but the one wolverine drove about twelve wolves away from dinner.
I’ve seen a large wolverine trying to kill a moose calf while it’s mother defended it. Also saw a wounded caribou run by me with a wolverine hot on it’s trail. He peeled off and came over to check me out, necessitating I fire a round close over his head. They’re awesome looking beasts, low to the ground so you can’t flip them, lots of muscle and loose skin, and they just don’t appear to be scared of damn near anything.
I’ve seen a lot of footage of wolverines taking on bears and wolf packs. They’re extremely strong, tenacious and utterly ferocious.
My Canuck buck is on the “Mountain Devil”.
Hyenas are tough, but their real advantage lies in their clan. Alone, I don’t think it would have a chance against an animal that’s used to taking on foes alone.
Not to nitpick, but that is not really a fair comparison, Wolverines are male shifted sexually dimorphic and Hyenas are female shifted sexually dimorphic, so you are comparing the smallest to the biggest. If males went toe to toe it would be more like 5 or 4:1 [Wolverine - “adult male 12-14 kg (26.4-30.8 lbs.)” Hyena - “Male wt 123-138 lb (56-63 kg)”] and wolverines take on bigger animals than that regularly. Like they say, it isn’t the size of the boat, it is the motion in the ocean, or in this case the size of the oversized crazy fighting weasel.
PS: Interesting note, Hyena females have very large (3-4 inches long) clitorises (clitori? clitorum?) and will mount male Hyenas in dominance displays.
PSS: So, that being the case I would say mano a mano, Wolverine, womano a womano, Hyena…how you gonna mess with a chick with a 4 inch clitoris?
Don’t hyenas have the strongest jaws in the animal kingdom? I thought I saw that on the Discovery Channel when I still watched TV regularly. I would think if the hyena was able to clamp down on li’l wolvie then wolvie would be a goner.
I think that even if it was two males, the size difference would be too much for the wolverine to win. Granted wolverines can take on other animals much larger than them, but moose and caribou don’t have sharp teeth and claws.
Ahh! Rockford read a little more into it. Moose and Caribou do not have sharpe teeth, but grizzly bears and wolves do. And they routinely run away from an angry wolverine. I stand by my assertion that the wolverine would win.
I cannot even begin to imagine what implements of destruction a wolverine has that could bring down a moose. That is indeed a credible cite but I suspect them of leaving out crucial details.
“A [pack of] wolverine[s] has been known to kill a [newborn sickly] moose [that was sleeping.]”
Anyway, I remember reading somewhere that a natural predator of the wolverine is the mountain lion. I’d say a hyena is at least equal to a mountain lion in terms of wolverine ownage.