Location
Date & Time
8:00pm EST - 9:00pm EST
About This Event
Kay will talk about her research on spotted hyenas. She has studied just about every angle of these creatures’ ecology and life history, including their hunting ecology, reproductive strategies, endocrinology, and social structure. Spotted hyenas live in social groups called clans. Given the size and organization of hyena clans, they offer a fascinating glimpse into the social intelligence of nonhuman animals such as baboons or chimpanzees.
BIO: Kay Holecamp is a recently retired Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. She received her undergraduate degree in 1973 from Smith College, where she wrote her honors thesis on the behavior of Linnaeus's mouse opossum. After Smith College, Holekamp hitchhiked around the world and spent some time as a river guide in Amazonas. Then Holekamp earned a PhD in 1983 from the University of California, Berkeley. There and in the years that followed, she studied the dispersal behavior and endocrinology of Belding's ground squirrels living in the Sierra Nevada of California. Holekamp also directed the Mara Hyena Project in southwestern Kenya from 1988 to 2025.
Hyena photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spotted_hyena_(Crocuta_crocuta).jpg
Photo of Kay Holecamp, courtesy of Michigan State University, honored faculty: https://msu.edu/honoredfaculty/directory/holekamp-e-kay.html
About This Event
Kay will talk about her research on spotted hyenas. She has studied just about every angle of these creatures’ ecology and life history, including their hunting ecology, reproductive strategies, endocrinology, and social structure. Spotted hyenas live in social groups called clans. Given the size and organization of hyena clans, they offer a fascinating glimpse into the social intelligence of nonhuman animals such as baboons or chimpanzees.
BIO: Kay Holecamp is a recently retired Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. She received her undergraduate degree in 1973 from Smith College, where she wrote her honors thesis on the behavior of Linnaeus's mouse opossum. After Smith College, Holekamp hitchhiked around the world and spent some time as a river guide in Amazonas. Then Holekamp earned a PhD in 1983 from the University of California, Berkeley. There and in the years that followed, she studied the dispersal behavior and endocrinology of Belding's ground squirrels living in the Sierra Nevada of California. Holekamp also directed the Mara Hyena Project in southwestern Kenya from 1988 to 2025.
Hyena photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spotted_hyena_(Crocuta_crocuta).jpg
Photo of Kay Holecamp, courtesy of Michigan State University, honored faculty: https://msu.edu/honoredfaculty/directory/holekamp-e-kay.html
Location
Date & Time
8:00pm EST - 9:00pm EST