Abstract The striped hyena is the largest living omnivorous scavenger in SW Asia. It generally lives in semi-arid desert steppe regions, often denning in small caves, rock shelters, and burrows close to human settlements. Bone fragments of wild and domestic animals and desiccated scats are frequently found in the hyena dens. In this study, eight striped hyena desiccated scats were subjected to pollen analysis. All scats were rich in pollen and the exine was well-preserved with no visible sign of corrosion. Pollen spectra revealed interesting information on the regional and local vegetation, as well as the foraging behavior and diet of the animal. They reflected an array of different landscapes ranging from natural/semi-natural xerophytic desert steppes, agricultural fields, and grazing pastures. Some scats contained certain pollen taxa very rarely observed in wetland sediments, indicating the high potential of hyena “copropalynology” in providing detailed information on the past floristic composition of the landscape. When comparing with archeobotanical data from the area, the hyena scat assemblages show that the general physiognomy of the landscape has remained almost unchanged since the 6th millennium B.C., with only minor changes in the composition or density of the woody components of the desert steppe. As most of the Holocene fossil coprolites in archeological and paleontological sites of SW Asia would have been left by striped hyena, the study of the modern analogs of such accumulations in extant hyena dens is helpful to correctly interpret the fossil faunal assemblages to reconstruct the paleolandscapes, land-use change, and animal paleoethology.

中文翻译：

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伊朗中部现代条纹鬣狗 (Hyaena hyaena) 粪便的花粉分析：对旱地古生态学和动物古人类学的影响

摘要 条纹鬣狗是亚洲西南部最大的现存杂食性食腐动物。它通常生活在半干旱的沙漠草原地区，经常栖息在靠近人类住区的小洞穴、岩石掩体和洞穴中。在鬣狗窝中经常发现野生动物和家畜的骨头碎片以及干燥的粪便。在这项研究中，对八只条纹鬣狗的干燥粪便进行了花粉分析。所有粪便都富含花粉，外壁保存完好，没有明显的腐蚀迹象。花粉光谱揭示了有关区域和当地植被的有趣信息，以及动物的觅食行为和饮食。它们反映了一系列不同的景观，包括自然/半自然旱生沙漠草原、农田和放牧牧场。一些粪便含有在湿地沉积物中很少观察到的某些花粉类群，这表明鬣狗“粪孢学”在提供有关过去景观植物区系组成的详细信息方面具有很高的潜力。与该地区的考古植物数据相比，鬣狗粪便组合表明，自公元前 6 世纪以来，该景观的总体地貌几乎保持不变，沙漠草原的木质成分的组成或密度仅发生了微小的变化。由于亚洲西南部考古和古生物遗址中的大部分全新世粪化石化石都是条纹鬣狗留下的，因此对现存鬣狗巢穴中此类堆积物的现代类似物的研究有助于正确解释化石动物群组合以重建古景观，土地利用变化，