If I'm reading it right, there are very few "upsets", where a hyena the scientists model as lower-ranked exerts dominance over a higher one.
That suggests that even if every hyena doesn't know the total ordering of the pack, he knows whether each other hyena ranks higher or lower than him. Maintaining that knowledge doesn't absolutely require knowing the total ordering, but it's an interesting computer science problem to maintain it without.
That suggests that even if every hyena doesn't know the total ordering of the pack, he knows whether each other hyena ranks higher or lower than him. Maintaining that knowledge doesn't absolutely require knowing the total ordering, but it's an interesting computer science problem to maintain it without.