As per a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, hyenas and wolves in the Negev Desert have teamed up in their mission survival. The findings have strengthened the notion that humans aren’t the only group that can set aside their rivalries when they face a common threat.

In Israel’s Negev Desert, striped hyenas (Hyaena hyaena) and gray wolves (Canis lupus) have been facing circumstances wherein they are seeking food in the deserted landscape. Both the carnivorous species can kill huge animals, including dogs, and they are hardly ever seen together. In fact, hyenas sometimes get into fights with lions when they are in a group. At times, they have managed to grab food from lions, leopards and other big cats.

It is quite strange that researchers have spotted striped hyenas roaming within wolf packs, while hunting within canyons in southern Israel.

At first, researchers noticed the coalition in tracks present in the region, a finding that was confirmed four years later, when the behavior was spotted for the first time in the wild.

Biologists haven’t ever recorded such a phenomenon so they aren’t sure whether this is a newly developed behavior, or was quite normal thing even in the past.

Vladimir Dinets of the University of Tennessee said, “Animal behavior is often more flexible than described in textbooks. When necessary, animals can abandon their usual strategies and learn something completely new and unexpected. It's a very useful skill for people, too”.

It could be the case that the animals have teamed up to take benefit of their relative capabilities. Hyenas can smell better than wolves, and can smell carrion from quite far away. Such a skill allowed the animals detect garbage dumps from far away than wolves could without hyenas. But, wolves are more skilled in taking down large game, raising the chances of more probable food sources in the arid area.