It is especially common in dry acacia bush, open plains, and rocky country. It is found at elevations of up to 4,000 meters. Crocuta is probably the most numerous of the large African predators, because of its ability quickly to eat and digest entire carcasses, including skin and bones, and because the plasticity of its behavior allows it to function effectively either as a solitary scavenger and predator of small animals or as a group-living hunter of ungulates. Dens vary greatly in size, sometimes accommodating entire communities of hyenas. They are usually in abandoned aardvark holes but may also be in natural caves.
Most activity is nocturnal or crepuscular.
Up to 80 km may be covered in a night's foraging. Crocuta has keen senses of sight, hearing, and smell. In these areas the spotted hyena shelters in holes on the plains or in shady places with bushy vegetation on hillsides. Dens may have 12 or more entrances. Activity occurs mainly in the first half of the night, then declines, and then increases again toward dawn.