Dr. Metablog

Hyena News

It had been a long time since I'd read a decent hyena book, so I opened Mikita Brottman's Hyena (London, 2012) with great anticipation.

I'm sorry to report that it was a bit of a disappointment: not nearly enough biology and too much undigested "reception history."  Yes, it's true that hyenas are regarded with almost universal fear and revulsion. perhaps because they dig up corpses and run off with young children. But I knew that. And although Brottman mentions the unusual sexual apparatus of female hyenas, which causes so much difficulty with copulation and childbirth, she neglected to remind us that hyena males lack a baculum.

Good pictures, however.  Here's one.

Not particularly lovable, I think.

I've seen a lot of stuffed animals in baby's cribs, but I've never seen a cute stuffed hyena. Merely a sampling error, it turns out. Stuffed hyenas suitable for your newborn are available on the internet,

Nevertheless, I a bit skeptical that hyenas will ever outsell the bunnies and puppies.

Stephen Maxfield Parrish, 1922-2012

Now only one of my teachers survives -- and then only because he's a centenarian. Steve Parrish, next-to-last, who was very kind to me back there in the 1950s, died a year ago at the age of 90. News travels slowly.  I now realize that Steve was only a couple of years out of grad school when I met him (his career started late because of two Navy stints, one in WWII and one in Korea). He was disarmingly casual, but nevertheless learned and intelligent. In retrospect, I am stunned that he was able to listen to my adolescent blather with a straight face. I also remember a dinner at his home where his genial demeanor was taxed by the ferocity of his then-wife. Of his famous grandfather,I tried but never got him to say a word. Letters and postcards from him were appropriately signed, "Affably, SMP.  I remember that he helped me with my undergraduate thesis, helped me to win a Wilson, and wouldn't let me quit the "large Eastern university" to which he had sent me when I wanted to come back home to the alma mater far above Cayuga's waters. 

I should have thanked him. Too late.