Since ancient times, people treated these sea animals as a deity, endowing them with strength and intelligence. In many ancient legends and traditions, dolphins served the gods and helped good people and punished the wicked. And now most people have an established stereotype: a dolphin is a friend of man and almost a fellow human being. Is it really?
This incident, which almost ended tragically, happened to an MP correspondent in the early 80s on the shore of the then Soviet Crimea in Lisya Bay, not far from the village of Planerskoye.
My friends and I were relaxing by the sea, pitching several tents right on the shore. One day I noticed how a pair of dolphins swam into the bay and began to frolic near the shore. Confident that the dolphin was a safe animal and could not harm me, I decided to play with them. Having watched enough films like "Flipper" and not realizing that it sea predator, possessing enormous strength, putting on a mask and fins, I swam straight towards the animals.
The only thing I remembered later was a huge, black shadow that rushed like lightning, a dull blow to the head and a sharp pain in the ears. I woke up already on the shore. Thank God, friends, all excellent swimmers and divers, saw how a male bottlenose dolphin, courting his girlfriend, mistook me for a competitor and rushed to attack. Fortunately, he only stunned me with a blow of his tail and turned back, apparently deciding that this was enough for me. The guys immediately rushed to my aid, pulled my unconscious body out of the water and provided professional medical assistance.
This incident became a lesson for life. Dolphins are not people's friends. Meeting them one on one on the open sea is very dangerous. It's like meeting a lion on the savannah and trying to stroke its mane.
Your journalist brother, who writes all sorts of fiction about dolphins, is partly to blame for the biased attitude towards these marine animals,” zoologist Dr. biological sciences Oleg Slavutsky. - More precisely, Soviet propaganda, representing general public that, they say, in our research institutes they study dolphins only for peaceful purposes. They are trying to decipher their language, find a way to communicate. Almost humanized them. In fact, there was one purely military program. The goal is to learn how to control fighting dolphins at a distance using echolocation, which these animals possess.
Slavutsky was once a trainer of northern beluga whales in a closed “office” based near Leningrad.
He worked with animals, which were later used for military purposes. For example, his beluga whales, less agile than the Black Sea dolphins, were ideal for underwater mine clearance, photographing and retrieving great depth all kinds of objects that could pose a danger to divers and scuba divers. Black Sea bottlenose dolphins were trained as saboteurs, port guards and suicide bombers of enemy ships. Living torpedoes filled with explosives. To guard ports, trained dolphins were wearing a special hoop with a long, sharp spike. The dolphin was supposed to use it to pierce enemy swimmers-saboteurs if they tried to penetrate the port waters.
Then the UN adopted a resolution banning the use of marine animals for military purposes. Similar schools for fighting dolphins and seals in the USSR, England, Italy and the USA were closed, and previously classified information was made public. The bulk of the animals were destroyed due to the cessation of funding, only a small part of them ended up in dolphinariums.
Indeed, some dolphins and beluga whales can be trained to perform various tricks and perform in dolphinariums. This is a very good business. Although the work for trainers is very difficult. It’s only in the water arena that everything looks beautiful and fun,” continued Oleg Konstantinovich. - Some animals did not respond to training at all. Moreover, the majority were such freedom-loving people. It is a little easier to teach a dolphin something if it has already been born in captivity. Tame wild dolphin very hard. There have been cases where animals even killed themselves. They accelerated and hit the wall of the pool. They preferred death to life in captivity.
As for your case in Fox Bay, consider yourself very lucky. IN mating season Even experienced trainers who have worked with these dolphins for many years do not enter their pool - they can kill them. And they will do it almost instantly. By and large, all dolphins are born killers and excellent hunters, with great intelligence and ingenuity. That is why there was such increased interest in them from the military.
And yet somehow I couldn’t believe that the dolphins so familiar to us were so bloodthirsty and evil towards humans. I remembered another tragic incident that occurred several years ago in Gelendzhik.
Our editorial spearfishing team, which I then headed, conducted training before the Russian Cup in Gelendzhik Bay. The St. Petersburg national team was training nearby, led by an international class master in underwater hunting, a very experienced athlete, Vladimir Senegubov. And although the St. Petersburg residents dived in the area designated for them, marked by appropriate warning buoys for ships, a misfortune occurred. A pleasure boat literally walked over the heads of underwater swimmers without noticing the warning buoys. Senegubov was fatally injured by a boat propeller. A blood stain immediately appeared on the water. The unfortunate man died on the shore in the arms of his comrades. We were all shocked! But when his teammates transported the dying Vladimir to the shore, suddenly a whole school of dolphins appeared around them.
How did these “evil” animals behave? They raised such a cry that was heard far on the shore and immediately attracted a lot of vacationers from the embankment. They circled around the mortally wounded man, making such sad, tragic sounds that the heart involuntarily sank. Some tried to dive under the wounded man, lifting him above the surface, although this was not necessary. Then they did not leave the scene of the tragedy for a long time.
I asked the director of the Moscow Zoo dolphinarium, Andrei Sheremet, to comment on the behavior of dolphins at the sight of a dying man.
Most likely, the conditioned instinct that many cetaceans have was triggered when relatives come to the aid of a sick or wounded animal, try to dive under it and push it to the surface so that it can take a breath of air. After all, an underwater swimmer, dressed in a dark wetsuit and fins, may to some extent resemble a dolphin or an animal similar to it. However, dolphins do not “look after” a mortally wounded or hopelessly ill animal for a particularly long time. Seeing that they cannot help him, they leave, leaving their relative to die. They will never push a person to the shore; for them this is unnatural. They can support you, but never push you to the shore. These are all fairy tales. Humanizing dolphins and giving them intelligence is stupid. Like all animals, even highly organized ones, they still live and act instinctively, feeling neither pity nor compassion for representatives of their species, not to mention people, whom, like all other animals, they try to avoid whenever possible.
On the other hand, if a person does not show aggression towards a dolphin, but, on the contrary, feeds it, the animal ceases to see it as an enemy, fears it and begins to regard it as a free source of additional food. Suffice it to recall Canadian grizzlies and moose, which have been literally living on city streets for a long time, even entering people’s homes, which creates big problems.
Over the past few years, it has become fashionable to swim with trained dolphins. A term even appeared - dolphin therapy, which supposedly cures some ailments. What does science think about this? - I ask Andrey.
It's all nonsense another myth, simply put, one of the ways to make money from dolphins. Basically ordinary payable service. Petting and taking a photo with a dolphin after the show also costs money. Those who are richer can swim with him. If a person enjoys it and believes that this communication will make him feel better, why not. Someone loves cats very much and calms his nervous system, stroking her, someone dogs. Dolphin is no exception.
But I will only say one thing: recklessly throwing yourself into the water and swimming towards dolphins is a stupid and dangerous idea.
Contrary to popular belief, these marine animals ultimately remain animals in relation to humans. They are relatively easy to train. But they can just as easily kill you.
They're just instinctive
Myths about the “humanity” of dolphins are inspired by many films and television shows. In fact, these marine animals do not have any special qualities that bring them closer to humans. They can be trained in the same way as, for example, dogs, which, loaded with explosives, were sent under tanks during the Great Patriotic War. It is important to use the natural qualities of dolphins and their instincts correctly, wisely. You shouldn't rely completely on animals - stories about their intelligence - beautiful fairy tale, no more.
Why do they kill
Stories of people being saved by dolphins are better known than cases of people being killed by dolphins. In both cases, dolphins are not guided by “ common sense", but only by animal instinct. Just wanting to “play,” a dolphin can either save a drowning person or drown him; there are many such cases. According to ichthyologists, the aggression of dolphins towards people in Lately is increasing - more and more cases are being recorded when these animals attack humans for no reason. A school of dolphins can literally tear apart a lone swimmer if he happens to be in their company. The results of studies of unsafe behavior of dolphins towards humans in the West began to be made public in the 90s, when cases of human deaths as a result of contacts with these “good-natured and sweet” animals exceeded hundreds. The experiments of Scottish scientists Ben Wilson and Harry Ross, who studied cases of unmotivated massacres dolphins "porpoises". It turned out that dolphins can kill an animal “just like that,” for fun. Dolphins attack humans while in a state of sexual aggression (this is typical for them). It is a common thing for a dolphin to capsize a boat and “play” a lonely bather to death.
They save, but “in their own interests”
There is a common misconception that dolphins save people from sharks. This is also a legend, like the prejudice about saving a drowning man - the dolphin is just playing with him, nothing more. In the case of sharks, the situation is the same - sharks prefer not to mess with dolphins and swim away, since dolphins are potentially strong rivals, and they also have teeth. If a swimmer accidentally finds himself in the dolphin hunting zone (for fish), the animals will perceive him as a rival (such cases have happened) and will push the person into the open sea, away from the school of fish. Trained dolphins are controllable. But the same cannot be said about wild animals. There are many cases of dolphin attacks on people, and each of them is another confirmation that the fairy tale about the “human dolphin” is nothing more than a myth.
Illustration copyright Thinkstock
Dolphins are smart and friendly, but they also have a dark side that will make your hair stand on end.
They say that: Dolphins are intelligent and friendly mammals that love to perform tricks.
In fact: All of the above is true, but dolphins are also known to engage in sexual abuse, incest, and infanticide.
Dolphins are smart. Anyone who has seen them perform incredible stunts knows this.
For those of you who doubt this, there are countless studies done on their cognitive abilities.
In most cases, dolphins of the most common and known species– bottlenose dolphins, or large dolphins.
Dolphins living in captivity are able to remember whistles in different tones for many years, and sometimes decades.
In classic scientific work about dolphins, published in 1984, presents the results of an experiment in which scientists trained a female bottlenose dolphin named Akeakamai to imitate (in whistling mode, as the authors write) sounds generated by a computer.
The sound signals emitted by the electronic device and those with which Akeakamai responded turned out to be surprisingly similar.
Illustration copyright Brandon Cole naturepl.com Image caption Dolphins! What a miracle!Then biologists began to attach sounds to objects like a hoop, pipe, frisbee or ball.
Akeakamai quickly calculated this connection and made a sound indicating the vocalization of each of the objects. In essence, she learned a new vocabulary.
Wild dolphins demonstrate comparable achievements. Each of them has their own signature sound, which serves as a kind of name for them.
When scientists recreated these calls using a computer synthesizer, the dolphins responded as if they knew who was calling them.
On top of that, they remember each other. As a result of scientific research conducted in 2013, it was discovered that dolphins can remember a particular sound (“whistle phrase”) for many years, and sometimes decades.
They act completely different from Flipper.
In one case, a female named Ollie at the Brookfield Zoo (about 20 kilometers west of Chicago, Illinois) clearly responded to a recording of the voice of another dolphin, Bailey, in Bermuda - even though they had not seen each other for more than 20 years.
Even more amazing is the fact that in 2001, two bottlenose dolphins successfully passed the mirror test at the New York Aquarium.
Scientists used a "non-toxic black Entre ink marker" to mark the animals' bodies. geometric figures different shapes, which served as their special signs.
Illustration copyright Alex Mustard naturepl.com Image caption Bottlenose dolphins are smart, but sometimes they have quite bad temperamentsAfter this, the dolphins swam up to the mirror and studied themselves for a long time. This suggests that dolphins can recognize themselves - at least to some extent, which very few animal species are capable of ( in particular, apes and other monkeys, elephants and African gray parrots – Ed.).
The brilliant brain power of these marine animals has led to a sort of cult of dolphins both within the New Age movement (mystical, occult and esoteric practices that boomed in the 1970s) and beyond.
However, scientists have discovered another, much more dark side in the nature of dolphins. It turned out that they behave completely differently from Flipper ( miracle dolphin, friend and rescuer of people from the series of the same name - Ed.)
"They're very smart, but just like people, they can be nasty and cunning," says Richard Connor, a fellow at the University of Massachusetts Darmouth and co-director of the Dolphin Research Association.
Gang rape?
When mating season arrives, there is a fierce fight between them for females. In the 1980s, Connor and his colleagues were the first to document male dolphins aggressively pursuing fertile females in Shark Bay, Australia.
“Harassment begins when two or three males catch a female,” they wrote in 1992.
Females often tried to escape from males, but they succeeded only in one case out of four.
Males furiously attack their chosen one. In one of the observed cases of such a “hunt,” the chase lasted 85 minutes, the hunters and prey covered a distance of seven kilometers.
During further observations, it became obvious that the composition of these associations of males could be very variable.
Small teams of males were usually part of larger "super-alliances" with up to 14 members.
It also turned out that the females were not at all eager to participate in these mating games.
“Male aggression toward females included chasing, tail lashing, head butting, lunging, and biting and running into females,” Connor and his colleagues wrote in a paper published in 1992.
Female individuals often tried to escape, but they succeeded only in one case out of four.
“During the year, females were harassed by males from many alliances, and in the most different months years - over the course of several months," wrote Connor and his colleagues.
The mortal sin of infanticide
Determined attempts by females to get rid of the advances of dominant males may be a manifestation of another sinister truth about dolphins.
"Baby Toss" sounds like a title. fun game, but this could also be a way for adult males to beat unrelated young to death
During 1996 and 1997 37 young bottlenose dolphins have washed up on beaches in Virginia.
A superficial examination would appear to indicate that there was nothing wrong with them, but an autopsy revealed serious injuries caused by a blunt object.
Mainly head and chest injuries were detected, “numerous rib fractures, lung ruptures, and soft tissue bruises were conspicuous.” This data is contained in scientific work, published in 2002.
Much evidence has been found that adult dolphins are to blame for the death of young animals.
In particular, one of the scientists observed several behavioral events, shyly labeled as “baby tossing,” in the coastal waters off the city of Virginia Beach.
Illustration copyright Pedro Narra naturepl.com Image caption A dead calf being tossed into the air by an adult dolphin"Baby tossing" sounds like the name of a fun game, but it may also be a way for adult males to beat unrelated cubs to death to get their mothers into estrus again.
In 2013, scientists saw a male dolphin attack a newborn calf, although this time the baby appeared to be able to swim away.
If infanticide is a clear and present threat in a dolphin community, then a female might be wise to try to mate with many males from different alliances, Connor says.
This way, the males will not know which of them will be the father of her cub, and the likelihood that they will kill him will be reduced.
"She doesn't want her movements to be controlled," he says.
Non-accidental incest
There is another surprise in the mating behavior of dolphins.
In 2004, a study of heredity within the dolphin population in Shark Bay discovered that these mammals occasionally practice incest.
One male, known as BJA, became a father in 1978 and 15 years later, in 1993, mated with his own daughter.
"We saw males courting their mothers in groups of three," Connor says.
And you thought sharks were bad.
Illustration copyright Thinkstock Image caption Dolphins are different. Just like people- You can read it on the website.
A few days before the new year 2007, a young woman became the next victim of a dolphin in New Zealand. A routine boat ride turned into a heart attack for her after a sudden attack by a dolphin.
Last September, the population of the coast of Brittany was literally terrorized by a dolphin, which overturned boats, tore nets, and once attacked a fishing boat and threw one of the fishermen into the water.
Killing for fun
“Zoologists believed that this dolphin was expelled from his herd several years ago by his relatives, and since then he began to lead the lifestyle of a lonely hooligan.”
Local authorities were even forced to create a crisis headquarters and intended to ban swimming in dangerous places. However, despite its aggressiveness, the dolphin was too popular among tourists, and, on the advice of experts, they decided to simply drive the animal away from the coast with noise. This method has been successfully used when it is necessary to scare away mammals from tuna nets.
Dolphins already for a long time they are studying, trying to find with them mutual language, endow them with extrasensory abilities.
However, contrary to prevailing myths, dolphins are not such good-natured and sweet creatures. Over the past ten years of research, hundreds and hundreds of cases have been recorded in which dolphins attacked their relatives - “porpoises” and killed them, using their elongated noses as sticks, and then opened the bodies of the dead sharp teeth. Moreover, their desire to kill was not dictated by hunger.
For the first time, experts began studying the aggressiveness of dolphins in the mid-90s of the last century. Scottish scientists Ben Wilson and Harry Ross, who studied the behavior of bottlenose dolphins on the northern coast of Scotland, discovered that the corpses of porpoises had numerous injuries: broken spines, ruptured lungs.
When traces of dolphin teeth were found on the carcasses, scientists realized that the “peaceful and kind” bottlenose dolphins are in fact ruthless and cold-blooded killers who kill porpoises not because they feed on their territory, but for fun! They play with the victim for a long time, throwing it from one dolphin to another, practically dooming the pigs to a long death.
Further observations revealed that bottlenose dolphins also kill calves of their own species from other groups. They do this in order to again cover the female, who, due to the death of the cub, again comes into a state of estrus.
In general, dolphins can safely be called the most sexually horny creatures on Earth. After the person, of course. American scientists have discovered entire herds of bachelor males who jointly attack other herds, beat off a female and then keep her in their group for several months. Moreover, each of the bachelors commits multiple violent sexual acts with her.
If there are no females nearby, or they are well protected by their “husbands,” anxious dolphins attack easier prey – people!
A couple of years ago, holidaymakers on the ocean in Weymouth (Dorset) received a warning about the danger of being carried out to sea by a sexually horny dolphin. As the British Times reported, the animal repeatedly tried to lure bathing women as far from the coast as possible and copulate with them.
“This animal is extremely sexually aggressive,” said American zoologist Rick O’Barry in connection with this case. “When dolphins are sexually aroused, they try to drive the swimmer, usually a woman, to a remote, secluded area away from the beach, boats and boats crowded with people.”
According to the scientist, aggressive behavior An animal whose weight reaches 180 kilograms can cause the death of a person.
A dolphin that attacked swimmers in Weymouth received several wounds from the propellers of boats and motorboats, but left coastal waters only after employees coast guard They started a real hunt for him.
Armed and very dangerous
A few days before the new year 2007, a young woman became the next victim of a dolphin in New Zealand. A routine boat ride turned into a heart attack for her after a sudden attack by a dolphin.
According to experts, the animal deliberately chose the woman as its target. The dolphin jumped out of the water, aiming specifically at the boat, and fell straight onto the unfortunate New Zealander. After which, with a “joyful” grunt, he jumped out of the boat and immediately disappeared into the depths.
The sea bully did not inflict serious physical injuries on his victim, but the shock from the sudden attack was so strong that a healthy 27-year-old woman immediately suffered a heart attack.
Fortunately, there was a friend in the boat with her, who hastened to call mobile phone help.
According to American marine experts, due to the aggressiveness of dolphins towards humans, the situation in the southern United States is worsening every year. If earlier they seemed to save drowning people, now, on the contrary, they constantly attack swimmers and try to drown them!
So, in Hawaii, three angry dolphins literally tore apart a scuba diver for no apparent reason. In Miami, four swimmers were beaten to death by a pack of animals. And this is not counting other cases that did not end so fatally!
The situation is further complicated by the fact that somewhere off the coast of the United States, several dozen fighting dolphins laden with chemical weapons are plying the ocean!
"These dolphins, trained to neutralize terrorist divers, disappeared from the aquarium of the Pontchartrain military base" during Hurricane Katrina.
As one of the US Navy headquarters officers told reporters, during the hurricane the waters of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain flooded New Orleans, and then subsided and carried the dolphins into the Gulf of Mexico.
And now anyone in a wetsuit - be it a surfer or a diver - is a potential enemy for those trained to kill dolphins.
The saboteur animals were captured by the military back in 2001, a year after terrorists blew up an American destroyer in the territorial waters of Yemen.
At the Pontchartrain base, dolphins were trained to attack enemy reconnaissance scuba divers, equipped with special pistols attached to the animals’ noses, and taught to use them to hit a target with darts filled with a narcotic substance.
Even the smartest beast remains a beast
After numerous studies, scientists have come to the conclusion that stories about dolphins allegedly saving drowning people are nothing more than a misunderstanding. According to experts, dolphins simply play with people, preventing them from drowning.
It is also a legend that dolphins save people from sharks. There is some truth in this, but not much. Seeing a drowning man among sharks, dolphins rush to him as a potential toy, and the sharks are forced to retreat, since they do not risk getting involved with a stronger opponent.
Studies over the past decade have shown that while trained dolphins are indeed safe for people, wild representatives of the dolphin tribe are by no means so friendly. These are cold-blooded killers and should be avoided. And, according to scientists, it will only get worse. Chemical and biological waste in the World Ocean cause various mutations in animals, including increased aggressiveness.
But even without these factors, it should be remembered that, despite attempts to “humanize” dolphins, they were and remain active predators and hunters. Therefore, we should not judge dolphins by the standards of our morality. A beast, even the smartest one, remains a beast.
The latest case of dolphins being “unfriendly” towards humans occurred in Yalta. On the afternoon of January 2, 2007, a local 40-year-old “walrus” decided to swim in the area of the former city beach.
Fortunately, officers of the operational group of the Yalta Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations were nearby. What happened next, says V. Ivanov, assistant to the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine in Crimea:
“Hearing a message over the loudspeaker that there was a man in the sea who was screaming and asking for help, the guys rushed to the shore, grabbing a long stick along the way. The Walrus was about thirty meters from the shore. Rescuers ran to the breakwater and saw that the unfortunate swimmer had been attacked by dolphins and was being pushed into the sea.
The screams of the rescuers did not frighten the animals, so the EMERCOM workers had to hit the stick several times not only on the water, but also on the dolphins. Only after this did they fall behind the “walrus”. Using the same stick, the unfortunate man was pulled ashore. The man was in a state of shock, his arms and legs were shaking, his teeth were chattering and he couldn’t really explain anything.”
As it turned out, the dolphins had driven the horse mackerel between the breakwaters and were feeding. Out of nowhere, they probably mistook the bather who came from nowhere for a competitor who had encroached on their prey, and began to drive the uninvited guest further into the sea, pushing him with their noses. The fact that they doom a person to death in this way apparently did not bother the dolphins at all...
Gennady FEDOTOV, staff correspondent of AN
Dolphins. Many people consider dolphins to be wonderful creatures of remarkable intelligence and kindness. This is partly true, but the mind plays tricks on our sea friends, and among them there are also real scum. Bottlenose dolphins, for example, sometimes kill and torture porpoises (dolphin-like cetaceans) just for fun. They don't eat them or try to drive them away, but simply beat them and don't let them breathe until they die. Also, some male dolphins rape both females and fellow males, not to mention other species.
Ants. Some species of ants use aphids as “cash cows,” eating their sweet secretions and protecting them from predators. It seems as if this is a completely harmonious symbiotic relationship, but the aphid is in complete slavery. If it tries to escape, the ants use special pheromones to stupefy the aphid and continue their slave-owning practices. 
Chimpanzee. Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist, once observed that some chimpanzees regularly kill and eat newborn babies for no apparent reason. More detailed studies have shown that monkeys are also capable of antisocial and outright insane behavior, similar to that in humans. 
Sea otters. Sea otters are the most charming creatures that swim on their backs, amusingly folding their paws on their stomachs. However, this impression is somewhat dispelled when it comes to mating. Male sea otters behave extremely aggressively during sex, painfully biting females. If there are no females nearby, they try to find someone who could replace them - for example, other male sea otters or other sea creatures. There are known cases of sea otters raping and killing cubs. fur seals who were unlucky enough to be nearby. 
Penguins. At the beginning of the 20th century, British explorer George Murray Levick and his team stumbled upon Adelie penguins during an expedition - and were horrified. The written story about the behavior of the “cute birds” impressed the censors so much that they banned its publication. According to Levick, male penguins tried to copulate with anything - the ground, other males, frozen corpses of females and baby penguins. They also raped females in large groups, crushing the eggs in the process. Levick described penguins as evil and emotionless creatures. 
Gorillas. In May 2016, a famous tragic incident occurred at the Cincinnati Zoo. A three-year-old boy fell into the enclosure and ended up in the hands of a large male gorilla named Harambe. Zookeepers had to shoot the gorilla to save the child, which subsequently caused a wave of condemnation. But the people who defended the gorilla didn’t really understand what they were talking about. In fact, male gorillas often behave extremely aggressively and violently, especially when defending their territory. Sometimes they beat the young to death. And a child for them is the same enemy as an adult. 
Sloths and lions. Many zookeepers have watched in disgust as female sloth bears repeatedly eat their newborn offspring. But when in one such case people intervened and saved the cub, it turned out to be extremely weak and sick. Perhaps the cubs eaten were the same, and the female was trying to conserve her resources for healthier children. Lionesses have also been observed to behave similarly—they sometimes leave lion cubs to starve to death, then eat the corpses. Also, lion cubs can be killed by a male who has captured a new pride. 
Sharks. Unborn babies tiger shark fight to the death without leaving the mother's womb. Up to twelve fry can be formed, but only the one who wins and eats the rest will be released into the world. This may be due to the fact that the female shark copulates with by different males, and the brutal duel of the cubs determines the offspring with the best genes. 
Hyenas. In The Lion King, hyenas were mostly the butt of jokes, but in reality they are not something to be joked about. For starters, the hyena gives birth through the clitoris, which is more reminiscent of a penis, often dying in agony. Sometimes, during such a birth, the cubs also die - by suffocation. But even having survived, they find themselves pumped up to their ears with testosterone. This results in causeless aggression and fights between young animals to the death. 
Cats. You've probably heard the saying "plays like a cat and a mouse." So, it is based on a very real phenomenon. Cats, having caught a defenseless creature like a mouse or a bird, often torture it for a long time before killing it. There is an opinion that in this way the cat hones its hunting skills, but many animal behaviorists assure that this is just a game, simple entertainment. 
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