The late Pleistocene spotted hyenaCrocuta crocuta spelaea(Goldfuss 1823) population with its type specimens from the Zoolithen Cave at Gailenreuth (Bavaria, South Germany): a hyena cub raising den of specialised cave bear scavengers in boreal forest environments of Central Europe

The upper Pleistocene Ice Age spotted hyena remains (number of bones per species (NISP) = 206; minimum individual number (MNI) = 7 young, 12 adult) from the German Zoolithen Cave include the Crocuta crocuta spelaea (Goldfuss 1823) holotype skull, and all cranial and postcranial paratypes which were found in the ‘cave bear bonebeds’. Those bones are on secondary positions in the vertical shafts especially of the central cave part, where they were redeposited due to quick flooding events of the Wiesent River at the final late Pleistocene. The young animal bones (NISP = 13%) indicate a natal/birth den site. Cannibalism within the hyenas is demonstrated by several skulls and few long bones. The scarcity of steppe megafauna hyena prey (NISP = 1%, woolly rhinoceros remains) and high amounts of damaged cave bear long bones (17%), similarly preserved at many other dens in Central Europe, indicate prey specialisation of hyenas (and other carnivores such as steppe lions, leopards and wolves) onto cave bear feeding in medium-high mountainous regions in the caves. This is the result of the rare mammoth steppe megafauna in such late Pleistocene boreal forest and cave-rich environments, which could have been hunted by the Zoolithen Cave hyenas only during migrations along the Wiesent River valley.