Photo by Anne Engh

Spotted hyenas are sometimes called laughing hyenas, because they make a noise that sounds like a maniacal laughter. Hyenas don't giggle all night because they're telling funny jokes. A hyena laughs to signal submissiveness, usually at a kill when a dominant hyena is harassing it. Besides laughing, hyenas make many other vocalizations. The most famous hyena vocalization is the whoop, a call that allows hyenas to comminucate over long distances. Hyenas whoop for many reasons: cubs whoop to call their mothers, mothers whoop to locate their cubs, and males seem to whoop just to tell the other hyenas that they're around.