# YAAID (Yet another animal identification.) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 1, 2014, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419 "2014-05-01T04:33:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/21 "2014-05-01T19:58:23Z")
> [@Truman\_Burbank](#): > > What I found head-slapping was posting a picture of a hyena, which clearly wasn’t taken in the geographical area given, and when the hyena was clearly identified as such, proceeding further, upon the basis of…_that’s where you lost me._ Now we’re\*\* in GQ\*\*, making necessarily wild-ass guesses based upon? This thread was over after the first and second responses. The basis is that the guy saw something that looked like that picture of a hyena. Hence I’m asking for any indigenous animals that might look similar, which I can then mention to him, and he can say if it looks like the right one. I promised the guy that I would ask here, and I didn’t want to go back and say “Without a picture, they couldn’t come up with anything.” I wanted to at least give you guys a chance. I take your point about this still being in GQ, but I didn’t think to have it moved at the time, and the jokes have taken over so much that I doubt I will get anymore serious answers now. If this were nonsense question, my friend wouldn’t have over 50 posts on Facebook responding or have been looking all day trying to figure out what this unusual animal was that he’d never seen before, despite living here all his life. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/22 "2014-05-01T20:23:12Z")
> [@Truman\_Burbank](#): > > Or, I suppose, it could have been an _escaped_ hyena… What about a møøse? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/23 "2014-05-01T20:30:24Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I take your point about this still being in GQ, but I didn’t think to have it moved at the time, and the jokes have taken over so much that I doubt I will get anymore serious answers now. The serious answers were pretty much exhausted at the get-go. If it looks exactly like that, it was a hyena. If it looks only a bit like that, it’s something else. > [@](#): > > If this were nonsense question, my friend wouldn’t have over 50 posts on Facebook responding … WTF? One of my friends said she thought she saw Voldemort on the train and got more than 50 responses. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/24 "2014-05-01T21:42:22Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > If this were nonsense question, my friend wouldn’t have over 50 posts on Facebook responding or have been looking all day trying to figure out what this unusual animal was that he’d never seen before, despite living here all his life. You get fifty posts on Facebook just for liking kittens and hating cancer; it’s not exactly Periclean Athens. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/25 "2014-05-01T21:53:10Z")
“Socrates, you stand accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and not Liking if you Support Our Hoplites”. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/26 "2014-05-02T00:39:15Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > If this were nonsense question, my friend wouldn’t have over 50 posts on Facebook responding or have been looking all day trying to figure out what this unusual animal was that he’d never seen before, despite living here all his life. I really don’t understand this. So your friend sees a strange animal. Presumably he doesn’t have a camera handy so he posts a picture of a different animal he downloaded from the internet. That animal being a hyena that inhabits sub-Saharan Africa and people on FaceBook are confused that he saw it in Branson, Missouri? Is that right? ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/27 "2014-05-02T00:45:39Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > I really don’t understand this. So your friend sees a strange animal. Presumably he doesn’t have a camera handy so he posts a picture of a different animal he downloaded from the internet. That animal being a hyena that inhabits sub-Saharan Africa and people on FaceBook are confused that he saw it in Branson, Missouri? Is that right? And, with absolutely no description of the animal, asks GQ to guess what it could be, and gets snippy when nobody has any idea what they’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/28 "2014-05-02T02:01:33Z")
did your friend say if he was in a zoo when he saw it? ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/29 "2014-05-02T02:58:36Z")
and then posts this: “Okay, so he must’ve linked an image of a file he found online of something that looked similar. He sure made it sound like it was his image, but careful reading indicates he never said he took the photo.” Even though the OP specifically says ‘don’t look at the URL if you want to avoid a spoiler’, which surely seems to indicate he knew _when he posted the OP_ that his friend did not take this picture…:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/30 "2014-05-02T03:49:37Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Okay, so he must’ve linked an image of a file he found online of something that looked similar. \*\*He sure made it sound like it was his image, but careful reading indicates he never said he took the photo. \*\* > > Also, weird that I didn’t get any notification for your responses. > > Anyways, any idea of indigenous lifeforms that might resemble the hyena in that picture? Except who changed the file name? ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/31 "2014-05-02T13:29:20Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > … > I promised the guy that I would ask here, and I didn’t want to go back and say “Without a picture, they couldn’t come up with anything.” I wanted to at least give you guys a chance. This is even more confusing. It sounds like **you** chose to post a picture of a hyena, your friend had nothing to do with it. So you come to GQ, post a picture of a hyena, and say “Hey my friend saw this in Arkansas, what could it be?” ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/32 "2014-05-02T14:07:58Z")
Well, this is going swimmingly… ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/33 "2014-05-02T14:58:07Z")
Well I did a google search for “dog look like hyena” and there was not a lot of info that was not just specualtion. Here’s a yahoo answers that sounds plausable. It says maybe a german shepard or chow chow or akita or a shepard lab mix. > **[Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos](https://www.yahoo.com/)** > > Latest news coverage, email, free stock quotes, live scores and video are just the beginning. Discover more every day at Yahoo! Maybe it was just a weird mutt of a couple of bigger dogs. Edit: Also I learned that hyena are more closely related to cats than dogs. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/34 "2014-05-02T15:30:01Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > Well, this is going swimmingly… I know. Sometimes it almost seems like people look for ways to be confused rather than try to understand. How did the image get its filename? Because I had to take an image from Facebook and post it elsewhere so you guys could see it. The title is based on what the guy thought it was and where he saw it. (The upload site removed the quotation marks I used in the filename.) I didn’t want you to be biased by what he thought it was, so I told you not to look at the URL. I don’t know where the idea came from that he was trying to deceive anyone. I thought he said it was a photograph he took, but careful rereading indicated that this was not the case. Some people got that, some didn’t, so he clarified. The discussion didn’t stop. Someone stated that I made a bad judgment in continuing the conversation past the point when the image was shown not to be what I thought it was, so I pointed out that I was not the only person trying to continue the conversation. I believe that’s everything I haven’t already spelled out. If you’re still confused, forget about it. As I’ve been told multiple times, this thread is already dead. I don’t see any point is fighting your confusion if I’m not going to get any more answers. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/35 "2014-05-02T15:34:14Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I know. Sometimes it almost seems like people look for ways to be confused rather than try to understand. Yep, it’s us. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/36 "2014-05-02T16:32:27Z")
FWIW, there are several zoos in the Harrison, Arkansas, area. A previous poster speculated an escaped hyena. I can’t imagine a hyena having such a successful jailbreak. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/37 "2014-05-02T18:01:17Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Except who changed the file name? Bingo. **BigT** ’s friend is lying. And **BigT** believed him for reasons I can’t guess at. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/38 "2014-05-02T19:30:04Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > Well I did a google search for “dog look like hyena” and there was not a lot of info that was not just specualtion. > > Here’s a yahoo answers that sounds plausable. It says maybe a german shepard or chow chow or akita or a shepard lab mix. > > [Yahoo Search - Web Search](https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110308152300AAoWtrp) > > Maybe it was just a weird mutt of a couple of bigger dogs. > > Edit: Also I learned that hyena are more closely related to cats than dogs. The dogs that look most like Hyenas are [these](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycaon_pictus) (also indigenous to Africa). ---
**Author:** ![JKilez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e5b9ba/32.png) [@JKilez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKilez)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/39 "2014-05-02T22:56:36Z")
Young feral pigs are often yellow or tan and can easily be mistaken for dogs at a distance, particularly if you are not used to seeing feral pigs. Their movement, behavior, and body type are similar. ETA: If your friend was in Texas the odds that this mystery animal was a pig would be just shy of 99%. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419/40 "2014-05-02T23:13:29Z")
From the peanut gallery: Since you mentioned it, and OP train has left the station, don’t hyenas have something weird going on with their penis? This is all that shakes out of my memory hole under “hyena.” Penis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yaaid-yet-another-animal-identification/687419.md?page=3)