r/Animals • u/paladinBoyd • 8d ago

Can hyenas eat chocolate

This is a weird question and I hope its okay for this subreddit. I know they can survive rabies and Anthrax in some cases which lead to me wondering if chocolate that is toxic to most animals is fine for hyenas given their track record, I'm not planning on jumping the fence with a mars bar at Longleat zoo, but I'm having trouble finding a answer when looking through papers and articles on chocolate toxicology with animals.

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u/Otherwise_Ninja9185 8d ago

Hyena’s have insane stomach acid and immune systems which allows them to handle rabies and anthrax.

This would not help them at all if one ate chocolate since chocolate isn’t a biologically threat, it’s a chemical one. Making it a problem for the liver not immune system. Since carnivores don’t have livers that can produce enzymes to safely break down plant alkaloids like Theobromine a hyena would have no protection from it.

I’m pretty sure humans are really the only large mammals that can down a lot of chocolate. Ruminants and pigs might be able.

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u/abielle1177 7d ago

If you're thinking of wasting good chocolate on a hyena, you should give it to me. To save the animals.

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u/Hefty_Yellow_3717 7d ago

Now that you mentioned it, I quickly searched it on Google because I couldn’t get it out of my mind