Brown Hyena Behaviour Data from a Coastal Seal Colony in Namibia

Marie Lemerle's dataset supports research on the foraging behaviour, hunting strategies, and temporal activity patterns of brown hyenas (Parahyaena brunnea) at a coastal seal colony in southern Namibia. The data were collected over a three-year period through direct observations and camera traps. It is a 3.3 MB XLSX file shared under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Analyzing sex-based differences in hunting efficiency based on the described hunting and foraging adaptations.
• Studying temporal activity patterns and intraspecific temporal partitioning among hyenas.
• Investigating the influence of black-backed jackals on hyena foraging strategies based on the interspecific competition data.
• Examining displays of surplus killing and caching behaviour mentioned in the description.

Strengths

• Data collection spanned a three-year period, providing longitudinal behavioural observations.
• Combines two data collection methods: direct observations and camera-trap data.
• Dataset is focused on a specific, unique ecosystem where brown hyenas function as apex predators.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for certain analyses.
• Data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to the single study site in southern Namibia.

Provenance

Source

Marie Lemerle via figshare.

Collection Method

Data collected through a combination of direct observations and camera-trap data.

Time Range

Collected over a three-year period (specific years not stated).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-19 20:03:34; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Coastal seal colony in southern Namibia.