Thanks for the tips man,I hope my friend Ren sees this

Hyenas can also be traced back to feliformia, I believe.
But yeah, they're neither cat's nor dogs.
It's funny how many people call them dogs.
Last I heard dogs don't make laughing or whooping noises.

Personally, I stylize my fursona's Hyena parts, but I still try to keep some accuracy in the markings/ear shapes etc.

Yeh, stylisation works as long as you know what you're stylising from. ;P I have a toony style but still look at the actual animals first to figure out what features define them. ie. the 'accurate' versus 'TLK' tails are an example of how the animators did this.

If you stylise from other people's stylisations, rather than from the actual animal, you end up with something that looks nothing like it, so a lot of people don't know what actual hyenas look like anymore to some extent. But not nearly as bad as skunks...I'm gonna need to do a HUGE page on those. :x

Another interesting fact about Hyenas anatomy is that their front legs are longer than their back legs.
It's not their spines or a hump that makes them postured the way they are.

yeah, pretty much when I chose a Hyena for my fursona I took it upon myself to learn what I could about the animals lineage, behaviour and structure so I could draw them correctly and stylize them effectively. I just ended up drawing the tails like I do because I watched the Lion King a lot as a kid haha whoops.

It's funny though, how many furries actually know nothing about the animal they're drawing from, it BOGGLES THE MIND. This is actually pretty neat though, I'm sure it'll help a lot of people <:

That last bit...so much. XD You would think people would study/know the animal they decide to pick for themselves as their fursona. Maybe it's the wannabe-biologist in me talking a bit, though.

I KNOW! I mean come on, with how many foxes and wolves and shit there are, you'd think people would know a thing or two about them...

Kangaroos, too, though  dirtiran did a comprehensive journal about the matter, too. But all the same, I think a "guide" of sorts on how to successfully stylize/anthro-ize kangaroos, skunks, rabbits/hares, and ... *thinks* there's prolly tons of other critters I'm forgetting, too, but I love what you're doing with these.

Yeh, stylisation works as long as you know what you're stylising from ... If you stylise from other people's stylisations, rather than from the actual animal, you end up with something that looks nothing like it

Extending "animal" to include the human form, this is why Jack Kirby stylized-from-life abstractions made him The King, while Rob Liefeld's attempts to reverse-engineer realistic anatomy from reverse-engineering superhero comic art just produced abominations.

WARNING BEFORE YOU CLICK ON THAT LINK: Your Obedient Serpent does not use the word "abomination" lightly!

Oh man, Liefeld. XD Linkara makes fun of him all the time on his show.

Ah. Well I guess Mal will have to make another hyena tail for his shop that. He only have the striped.

Yeah, that's what I meant about that tail on that hyena av looking like a stripy tail and not a spotty.

We'll fix it. It's a good basic tail for a stripe though.

I like how their ears look like a :D mouth.

Hahaha they do!

Woof. I have been educated.

And off in the cat family, aren't lions the only cat with a tufted tail?

Hrm, pretty sure they are, actually. I can't think of any others. And come to think, weird how lots of things native to Africa have tufted tails (lions, hyenas, most of the ungulates).

I love you.

What's TLK?
Also, what does the yellow circle indicate?

The Lion King (the most exposure to hyenas a lot of furries get)

And the yellow circle means right or wrong (as noted).

Ah, of course!

Ah, I see. Yellow circle is Striped Hyena tail.

It makes me sad how many people think hyenas are dogs...
Also aardwolves are not wolves. Nor are they aardvarks. :c

You know I find this helpful. Thanks Sid. C:

No prob. :3 I wanna do skunk too and maybe a misc... dunno what else. I should finish my art trades first though x.x

Skunks would help, I drew one (and posted) recently of a skunk. I have serious trouble with those. Especially trying to make em look derpy and skunk-like at the same time. xD

Skunks are kind of naturally derpy :B Big noses, stubby, rolly fat waddlin things. XD

Drives me nuts how many people get hyenas messed up. :C

Also makes me insane when people mistake African wild dogs for hyenas. They look totally different.

When I drew this character sheet for this guy:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2809093/

I based it off this and some other pictures that looked more brush like, like I drew:
http://www.game-reserve.com/images/.....rge/Hyaena.jpg

X.x

If you look closely at that photo, though, the tail is just longer than the one I drew...the fur's still short where it connects to the butt (the area that is spotted). It's harder to see in some of them because of the angle the tail is hanging at.

Yeah, I drew it like that, it's just kinna hard to tell. X3 At least that's what I was intending to draw, cause I reffed all over. Not sure if it's all that easy to "read" right though.

Lol it's easier to see in this toony con in the right hand corner: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3110785/

Yesh! ...and haha, toony Con is cute XD

I kind of should have spent a little more time explaining the tail since it's a little weird. I was thinking that in hindsight I probably should have described it as like it has something wrapped around 1/3 - 1/2 of the base to make it thinner. Oh well, I'm new at being edumacational. :P

Yeah. X3 HAHA. There are so many animals I'd like to make little fact sheets for like I did for red pandas (kangaroos, rabbits, etc.) and now I feel like I'd making a Hyena one too LOL.

You should do it, would probably do a better job than me. XD I wanted to do a skunk one too but ffff so many mistakes always made T_T

OH GOD. I need to start a list. hahahah.

The trouble is, a lot of people seem to draw animals and anthros without actually using any reference material. Just looking at a single photo of the animal shouldn't be that tough, I'd think.

This. D:

Gosh, wouldn't it be great if there were some kind of, I don't know, global knowledge base where you could just, maybe, type in the name of an animal and instantly have access to dozens or hundreds of pictures?

That'll never happen.

Because within just a few years of its inception any working search engines created to help people trying to research would just become inundated with links to advertisements and porn.

I'm sure of it. <_<

kind of like how people very poorly do bird wings and such.

Oh man, yes. I should do one of these for wings. DX People completely forget there is an arm and hand under those feathers, not just random feathercurtains.

and I never thought of hyenas as dogs so much just part of the canid family. like foxes. they are canids, but nowhere near canine.

Hyenas are not canids.

ORDER CARNIVORA > Suborder Feliformia ("cat-like") > Infraorder Viverroidea > Superfamily Herpestoidea > Family Hyaenidae: hyenas and Aardwolf

It branches to Canidae way back there at Feliformia.

Oh yeah...and foxes are under canidae with dogs, FYI, same exact family. >.>

I can never get the ears to my satisfaction. My brain is just stupid when it comes to them.

I was unsure how to describe them, but someone else pointed out that they are 'D' shaped, if that helps at all.

Thanks.

No prob.

I blame my hyena's big fluffy ears and short floofy tail on her being canadian and not african ;) Girls gotta keep warm amirite?

Hyena taxonomy: CARNIVORA > Feliformia > Viverroidea > Herpestoidea > Hyaenidae
Dogs and other canines are: CARNIVORA > Caniformia > Canidae

Just to clarify:
Feliformia = Cat Like Attributes
Feliformia does not contain cats

Small Cat Taxonomy: CARNIVORA > FELIDAE > Felinae (Cheetah/Cougar/Caracal/Serval/Domestic Cats/[All other non-roaring cats])
Roaring Cat Taxonomy: Carnivora > Felidae > Pantherinae (Lion/Tiger/Leopard/Jaguar/Clouded Leopard*/Snow Leopard*) *don't really roar, but their structure is better classified here.

annoying cannot edit....

Depending on which site you check you get slightly different category organization.

Feliformia does indeed contain cats now it seems, its a sub-order now.

Feliformia > Hyaenidae = Hyenas/Aardwolves
Feliformia > Felidae > = Cats
Feliformia > Viverridae = Civets/Genets/etc
Feliformia > Herpestidae = Mongooses


Caniformia > ... = Dogs/Ferrets/Foxes/Skunks/Badgers/Otters/Seals/Raccoons/Bears

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.e.....ite/index.html

Really? I always thought hyenas were always a subset of viverridae. Then again, skunks used to be a subset of mustelidae, so it might have been another one of those things that was changed. *unsure*

Yeah its kinda odd how they keep renaming things, they usually have good reason, but you learn one thing and all of a sudden its something else.

They just changed (or at least proposed the change) the name of the fruit fly that's been used in science books for decades now.

Drosophila melanogaster is going to become Sophophora melanogaster which has a ton of people up in arms because when you reclassify something like that, usually you reclassify others in the same group, and the insect group is HUGE.

We keep learning more about things, and the more we learn, the more we realize that what we thought we knew was actually wrong...

Up 'til the 19th century, a lot of otherwise observant folks still thought hyenas were hermaphroditic. Of course, there's kinda a _reason_ for that.

Carnivora > Feliforma > Expialidocious!

lol

Yeah, what I mean as 'more closely related to cats than dogs' is they are Feliformia rather than Caniformia is all. Didn't mean they are actually a part of the cat family itself...was more for emphasis coz people always think they are canids. :P

Yeah I was mostly just trying to make sure that people reading this understood that Cats had their own subbranch too. Was really just intending to expand on what you started. Its quite interesting how similar seemingly different creatures are sometimes. And yet how different they can be also. i.e. Human to Chimp comparison. The difference is fairly pronounced, yet genetically not so much.

Ohhh, I got ya. I thought you meant you thought I was implying they were felines. (that sentence got confusing..)
And yeah, taxonomic classification is really odd sometimes, and as you mentioned stuff gets moved about from one place to another (or back and forth a billion times till no one can remember what it is, like giant pandas). And then there are things like weasels vs. mongooses where they are quite far apart but have obvious convergent evolution.

Biology is funky. XD

That's cool, I see lots of mistakes when people draw hyenas.

I wish more people would draw friggin' striped hyenas. They're awesome. All POOF

YES. ((( . u . ))) poof

Very helpful, makes me want to make a hyena character. I'm often amazed at people who think African hunting dogs are a type of hyena

wtf @_@ Someone else up there said that too, so I guess it happens a lot. That's nuts... I dunno how people can mix 'em up.

Educational! <3

I love hyenas <3

guilty :[

Very well made reference :)

hyenas are actually related to mongoose last time i read on em

Herpestoidea branches off into both Hyaenidae and Vivveridae (mongooses, meerkats, etc.) so yeah, kinda.