This section is intended to be an exact copy of what the survivor Helena Walker, the author of the dossiers, has written. There may be some discrepancies between this text and the in-game creature.
“
Species
Hyaenodon dirus
Time
Late Eocene - Early Miocene
Diet
Carnivore
Temperament
Opportunistic
Wild
Among the Island's most tenacious pack is Hyaenodon dirus, a carnivore most often found across the mountains and tundras in packs of 3 to 6. The Hyaenodon is a very intelligent predator. Before engaging, it determines if the payoff for a fight is worth the risk of injury.
Hyaenodon often prefers not to fight unless there is already weakened prey or a fresh carcass nearby. This temperament changes quickly, though, near the presence of injured creatures. Hyaenodon quickly becomes very aggressive...
...and the pack attacks with ruthless abandon. With each vicious chomp of scavenged meat, the Hyaenodon rapidly recovers health and stamina.
Domesticated
Despite being too small to ride, Hyaenodon are still popular pets. Their intelligence means they train well, and their natural pack mentality makes them excellent hunting dogs. Their ability to quickly recover health by consuming raw flesh off the bone ensures they can take punishment yet continue to fight, and they can efficiently preserve meat in specially-crafted saddle-bags. A common (and terrifying) sight on the tundra is a rider on a Canis with a pack of Hyaenodon at its side, howls and jeers echoing through the night.
Hyaenodons are normally skittish if alone, running away when you get too close, unless you are injured. Once in a pack, their behavior massively changes, turning from skittish, to aggressive, and have a fairly big aggravation range.
Their Aggression is mainly dependent on Drag Weight [citation needed] and the type of prey they detect, for example a Lone Survivor will be subject to attacks from the pack. As such a Direwolf will normally not be attacked by three Hyaenodons and they will flee, however if another one comes along and thus the grouped drag weight is amounted to a higher number than the Direwolf they will start attacking.
A group of two will never attack even if the Drag Weight of the enemy is lower.
Appearance
The Hyaenodon is a vicious, carnivorous pack hunter found in mountains and cold regions. They resemble modern hyenas.
Color Scheme and Regions
Region 0:Main Body
Natural colors:
8
13
14
32
33
34
35
37
39
40
41
42
Region 1:Unused
This region does not show on the body.
Region 2:Unused
This region does not show on the body.
Region 3:Unused
This region does not show on the body.
Region 4:Highlights and Spots
Natural colors:
8
13
14
27
32
33
34
35
37
39
40
41
42
Region 5:Underside
Natural colors:
8
13
14
21
32
33
37
38
39
40
This section displays the Hyaenodon's natural colors and regions. For demonstration, the regions below are colored red over an albino Hyaenodon. The colored squares shown underneath each region's description are the colors that the Hyaenodon will randomly spawn with to provide an overall range of its natural color scheme. Hover your cursor over a color to display its name and ID.
This information can be used to alter the Hyaenodon's regions by entering cheat SetTargetDinoColor <ColorRegion> <ColorID> in the cheat console. For instance, cheat SetTargetDinoColor 0 6 would color the Hyaenodon's "main body" magenta.
Type in values of a wild creature to see on which stats it's emphasized. Green values on a high-level creature are very good for breeding. If you have already tamed your creature you can try to recover the breeding stats with an external tool.[2]
Hyaenodon
The stat-calculator does not work in the mobile-view, see here for alternatives: Apps
Note that after the creature is tamed it gets bonuses on some stats depending on the taming effectiveness. This makes it hard to retrieve the levels on a tamed creature, so this tool is only for wild ones, but gives a first impression, how well the stats are distributed.
Can be used every 0.45s by both a rider and the AI.
Passive
Meat Preservation
The Hyaenodon Meatpack doubles the spoilage time of all kind of Meat inside the Hyanodon's inventory, making a total preservation time of x8 the normal time. It also reduces the total weight of the meat by 60%.
Petting
A Hyaenodon can be petted by pressing E when in close proximity. It gives "Hug" buff for 120 seconds (Does not have an official name), sporting an orange aura, halving received damage and doubling dealt Melee Damage.
Corpse Regeneration
Similar to wild carnivores and others, whenever a tamed Hyaenodon bites a corpse it recovers instantly an extremely amount of Health and Stamina.
Pack Boost
The Hyaenodon receives the Pack Boost whenever it is near to another allied Hyaenodon. A "pack" of two Hyenas will receive a +1 Bonus, which will go up to +6 in a Group of 7 or more Hyenas, they receive +10% extra Melee Damage and +5.5% damage resistance per extra pack member up to 6 members.
Pack Leader
The Pack Leader buff is obtained by the creature of the pack with the highest level, in the case of Hyaenodon there is one alpha for every 7 hyenas. This buff increases the pack leader's Melee Damage by 25% and damage resistance by 12.5%.
The Hyaenodon is unable to be tamed through the standard tranquilize-and-feed methods, and must be tamed non-violently.
You do not use any type of food to tame the Hyaenodon. The game will prompt you to pet it every 30 seconds while crouching. However, it must be far enough from the leader in order to receive this prompt. Be sure to stay on top of this, the taming percentage will drop very quickly if you fail to pet within the following seconds.
You can create a taming cage using foundations and ceilings. You use the foundations to anchor the ceilings and make a hollow box in the center. Next add some walls and a ramp to make a more conventional taming trap. Lure the Hyaenodon into the trap and then you can crawl under the ceiling and pet it from there, making it far less likely to detect you. These wild pack Dino’s will spot you if you are not in ghillie armour.
Scaring it will cause it to lose all taming progress due to this both Ghillie Armor and Cactus Broth are highly recommended in addition if not using a pen or cage of some sorts a Glow Stick can assist in relocating it should this occur.
Combat
They have low health and can be killed with a sword, a pike, or a tamed Dino; they pose no threat besides when they are in their packs. Usually they run away, though it depends on their pack size.
General
What a Hyaenodon lacks in singular strength, it makes up for in numbers and pack bonuses. Finding a single Hyaenodon in the wild is not likely, but will be easily frightened and begin running away. A small pack of 3 will wait to find easy, already injured prey. A pack of 6+ Hyaenodons will be more willing to attack on sight.
Strategy
Using big AoE attacks from a larger dino is perhaps the easiest way to deal with a pack. On foot, you'll want to find some kind of terrain advantage, a rock or cliff of some sort, to deal with them from safe range.
Weaponry
Ranged combat is advised from a safe location if you need to kill all of them. Accuracy will be critical, as their fast movement makes them hard targets. If all else fails, a pike will be your best friend. Its range, knockback, and rate of attack will benefit compared to the sword, unless a shield is used effectively.
Dangers
Hyaenodons like to swarm opponents with brute force to end a battle quickly. A large pack will still give higher level players something to fear. Be careful, every pack has an Alpha that hits harder than the others.
Hyaenodons will attack unconscious dinos.
Weakness
Hyaenodons have low health and will flee if they're opposed by multiple players with big creatures, or if some of them (especially the pack leader) are killed. They also have a huge turning radius.
A smaller pack will try to flee from Sabertooths of a higher level so you can easily reap them.
Utility
According to the dossier, the Hyaenodon will be capable of healing itself quickly via collecting meat from dead bodies. Additionally it has "saddle bags" craft-able for it, even though you cannot ride it. The bags allow the Hyaenodon to act as a living fridge, increasing the spoil timers of food placed in its inventory. With the saddle bag equipped, most items with a spoil timer last twice as long as they normally would in a creature inventory, 8x longer than the default spoil timer. Placing preserving salt inside a Hyaenodon's inventory which also has a saddle bag, has the potential to increase the spoil timer of applicable items to 16x longer than in a player inventory. Notably wyvern milk and organic polymer are not affected by the saddle bag's special ability.
Roles
Guard Dogs: Since Hyaenodons are small, quick, and deal a lot of damage in packs, they make excellent guard animals. You can set them on aggressive to guard a base or use them as a supplement while hunting for great results. (Level up health and damage in packs, and some speed for solo Hyaenodons). A pack of 6-8 level 200+ Hyaenodons can quickly kill a 130+ bronto. (Level Melee Damage and Health)
Cave Explorer: Hyaenodons excel at killing creatures found in caves. A pack of mate-boosted, self-healing Hyaenodons can help you fully retrieve an artifact, provided that they don't fall into lava. Additionally, extra food can be stored on them for long expeditions. (Level up Health and Melee Damage)
Warpack: Combined with a few other small creatures, a pack of properly trained and higher-level Hyaenodons can take down creatures as big as Paraceratherium and Brontosaurus. (Level Health and Damage)
Traveling Pack: Because of their unique Hyaenodon Meatpack, they are almost a necessity for long voyages (especially across large maps like Ragnarok) and can improve your chance of survival, eliminating entirely the possibility of having to make a food stop. Also, other creatures will now have space freed up to carry other things. (Level Weight)
Damage: Hyaenodons deal large amounts of damage in small amounts of time and usually even more reliable of a killing machine than the Raptor or the Sabertooth.
Pet: Due to the Hyaenodon's similar look and sound of a dog, and is basic damn cuteness, it functions well as a pet.
Base Defense: Having a pack of Hyaenodons would be the one of the best early game Defences, due to their Speed, Damage Pack bonus, and agility they are a more reliable base defence dinos than other early game creatures such as the Kentrosaurus or the Thorny Dragon.
Mutton Transport: The Hyaenodons harvest tons of Meat and Mutton, and their Meatpack acts like a portable fridge, the Hyaenodon can also be picked up by small flyers such as Pteranodon or Tapejara, or if you need a ground transport the Hyaenodon can also be picked up by Procoptodon or Megalosaurus, making it one of the best ways to transport Mutton for your tames.
Collectibles
Notes/Trivia
For information pertaining specifically to the real-world Hyaenodon, see the relevant Wikipedia article.
In the Radial Menu a Hyaenodon can told to sit down and stand up
The size of the Hyaenodons are very varied. It goes from the size close to the Direwolves of the game (Hyaenodon Gigas) to that of a weasel (Hyaenodon microdon). The size of the Ark Survival Evolved Hyaenodon is close to that of the Hyaenodon horridus.
In the game, the Hyaenodons look almost the same as hyenas as of now, even if they are not related.
The Northernmost sandy beach of The Western Coast (see the spawn map) is the best location to find Hyaenodon. They spawn frequently and in large packs there. The search zone is small and visibility is good.
It may be difficult taming a Hyaenodon because of their small size and constant movement. Avoid taming from behind as the tail wagging on the ground counts as a hitbox and will set them off.
Yes
No
Region 0:
Region 4:
Region 5:
Direwolf will normally not be attacked by three Hyaenodons and they will flee, however if another one comes along and thus the grouped drag weight is amounted to a higher number than the Direwolf they will start attacking.
Health
Stamina
Oxygen
Food
Weight
Melee Damage
Movement Speed
Torpidity
Hyaenodon Meatpack doubles the spoilage time of all kind of 
Meat inside the Hyanodon's inventory, making a total preservation time of x8 the normal time. It also reduces the total weight of the meat by 60%.
"Hug" buff for 120 seconds (Does not have an official name), sporting an orange aura, halving received damage and doubling dealt 
Melee Damage.
Health and 
Stamina.
Pack Leader buff is obtained by the creature of the pack with the highest level, in the case of Hyaenodon there is one alpha for every 7 hyenas. This buff increases the pack leader's 
Ghillie Armor and 
Cactus Broth are highly recommended in addition if not using a pen or cage of some sorts a 
Glow Stick can assist in relocating it should this occur.
Raptor or the 
Sabertooth.
Speed, 
Kentrosaurus or the 
Thorny Dragon.
Mutton, and their 
Pteranodon or 
Tapejara, or if you need a ground transport the Hyaenodon can also be picked up by 
Procoptodon or 
Megalosaurus, making it one of the best ways to transport 
ARK: Survival Evolved Changes
Hyaenodon is added to the game
