Hyaenid Genera

This group gathers Mammal Genera subcategory members belonging to the hyena family, Hyaenidae, a small family of only a few living genera despite a dog-like appearance that is convergent rather than close kinship, hyenas are in fact more closely related to cats, civets and mongooses than to any canid. It spans the spotted hyena's own genus Crocuta, the largest and most social of the family with a famously matriarchal clan structure, the striped and brown hyena genus Hyaena, and the aardwolf, genus Proteles, an insectivorous specialist that feeds almost exclusively on harvester termites rather than hunting or scavenging vertebrate prey like its larger relatives.