And now that they've arrived, we'd like to clear up a few myths about these much-maligned creatures. In fact, just about everything we know about hyenas is mostly wrong. Hyenas are scavengers. Yes, but only if your definition of scavenger includes lions, too. In certain areas, lions steal more kills from hyenas than vice versa.
Hyenas are Africa's second largest predator capable of killing prey three times their own weight.
The rest they get the hard way. To start off with, whatever you call it, it's not a happy sound. They do make a call resembling a human laugh, if a Vincent Price style chuckle could be called a laugh. It expresses intense fear or anxious excitement. Other animals know that when they hear a lot of laughing, that usually means that hyenas have a kill.