EVERY mother wants to give her offspring the best start in life – but it doesn’t usually involve pumping them full of hormones. Unless you’re a spotted hyena, that is.
These dog-like pack animals live in a strongly female-dominated society in which the most aggressive become “top dog”, and get first choice of food and males.
Zoologist Kay Holecamp of Michigan State University and colleagues carried out an analysis of the faeces of animals living in the Masai Mara reserve in Kenya. They discovered that during the last few weeks of gestation the levels of male sex hormones or androgens in…
