It's one of the most distinctive sounds on safari- Hyenas laughing and cackling in the night. It reminds me of sitting around a camp fire or waking up in the night in my tent. In fact as I type I am reminded of my brother waking my parents up in Botswana many years ago:

"Dad, there's a hyena in the tent".

"No Kenneth, it's Grandad snoring".

(and Grandad wasn't even in the same tent as us.)

It seems the giggling sounds of hyenas are being decoded and contain important information about the animal's status.

US-based research by Professor Frederic Theunissen from the University of California at Berkeley, US, and Professor Nicolas Mathevon from the Universite Jean Monnet in St Etienne, France, has been published in the journal BMC Ecology.

• Pitch of the giggle reveals a hyena's age
• Variations in the frequency of notes convey information about the animal's social rank.

This may allow them to establish feeding rights which is probably why you hear it alot while they are scapping over food.

There's more about this on the BBC website here.

Whatever it all means it's one of my favourite bush sounds. There are probably only three other sounds that make me feel more nostalgic: hippos grunting, the emerald spotted wood dove call, and the cry of a fish eagle.