The Hyena Scientist (Scientists in the Field)

Ernest Hemingway once claimed the hyena is a "sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul, with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves, belly dragging, loping away on the brown plain." Many years later, in the movie The Lion King, Whoopi Goldberg famously voiced the skulking, sulking, hysterically giggling hyena that further cemented the general distaste toward these seemingly cowardly scavengers.

But don't let hyenas' bad reputation fool you. As a scientist studying one of the only mammalian societies led entirely by females, zoologist Kay Holekamp has made it her life's work to understand these fascination, complex creatures that are playful, social, and highly intelligent-almost nothing like the mange monsters of pop culture lore. Timely and inspiring, The Hyena Scientist sets the record straight about one of history's most hated and misunderstood mammals, while featuring the groundbreaking, pioneering research of a female scientist in a predominantly male field.