🐺
Spotted hyena
Crocuta crocuta
Carnivores · Least concern
vs
🦁
Lion
Panthera leo
Carnivores · Vulnerable
130 clips name both of them
443 million views between them.
Lion outweighs Spotted hyena 2.4× — 149 kg against 63 kg. Both figures are averages across males and females.
To scale
Grid at 50 cm
50 cm
1 m
1.5 m
2 m
Silhouettes: PhyloPic — Lukasiniho (CC BY-NC-SA); others CC0.
Spotted hyena
0.81 m
at the shoulder
Human
1.70 m
full standing height
for scale
Lion
1.15 m
at the shoulder
Tale of the tape
Body mass
63 kg
🐺 Spotted hyena · COMBINE
149 kg
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Shoulder height
0.81 m
🐺 Spotted hyena
1.15 m
🦁 Lion
Body length
1.38 m
🐺 Spotted hyena · COMBINE
2.17 m
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Top speed
60 km/h
🐺 Spotted hyena
55 km/h
🦁 Lion
Bite force
773 N
🐺 Spotted hyena
1,768 N
🦁 Lion
Maximum lifespan
41 yr
🐺 Spotted hyena · COMBINE
30 yr
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Bars are sized against the larger of the two figures. Bite force figures come from individual studies and vary a lot between sources.
Animals caught on camera
Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.
Graphic clips stay hidden unless you pick Graphic.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Feliformia (suborder), home to 257 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 22 million years ago.
Estimates range from 20 to 25 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).