Why Do Hyenas Eat Dead Lions While Lions Don't Eat Dead Hyenas?
Hyenas are known for their indiscriminate eating habits. Generally, modern predators do not eat their own kind, cannibalism among relatives is a typical characteristic of prehistoric predators. Currently, hyenas are the only mammals that exhibit cannibalism among relatives.
Carnivorous animals all have an acidic taste, so when we see predators killing each other, unless they are in a very hungry state, they will not eat each other. Hyenas are scavengers, and their meat is said to be bitter. I learned this from a documentary, where a very impoverished tribe in Africa has been eating hyena meat for years, and a child told a reporter that hyena meat is bitter.
There is a video on Baidu of hyenas eating hyenas. Out of several hyenas, only one is focused and devouring one, while the other two come over occasionally, sniff, and bite at the meat a little, which is different from the way hyenas usually eat other animals. The one that is focused and devouring started eating from the neck and didn't open the stomachs of the cattle and sheep. During the several-minute video, they didn't open the four hyenas' stomachs, and that one was even making a disgusted expression while eating, considering the picky cat.
I once saw an old animal documentary, which said that lions don't easily eat hyenas because hyenas contain parasites that, if lions get infected, they will eventually enter the lion's brain and cause symptoms like epilepsy.
