The Ladies Are In Charge?

Well, the males might be dominant or aggressive, but usually the females use them for protection and mating, and the females allow them to hang around.

Females are "dominant" if you will, with hyenas, bees, ants, wasps, elephants, Orca (whales in general). Wolves are rules dually be an Alpha male and female together. As in most social groups, mature males are kicked from the group, but females stay. (usually prevents inbreeding). Even Lions are matriarchal. A pride is a group of females. the males compete, with the strongest winning, to hang with the pride.

I think as a society we need to not reflect our socialistic tendencies on animal social groups or hierarchy. We need to observe that in nature, there are gender roles. Male and females each play an integral role in the proliferation of their species. Female groups are often guarded by a single male. So I'd say in most cases the females allow the males to stick around for protection and usually the strongest male beats out the other males for mating rights, but ultimately the female will allow the male to mate.

Well for starters you need to remember that a lot of animals aren't social, so no one is in charge. On top of that, many that are social can still be divided into sex groups at least a portion of the time, such as elk. But in terms of social animals where the females are the leaders you can also look at our cousins the bonobos. Ethiopia's gelada monkeys are also matriarchal. On top of that wolf packs usually have a dominant male and female, but I've seen the females be dominant even over the male. Also, I've heard female orcas are the heads of their pods.

It is very rare, but female dominance does exist in the wild.

In addition to Elephants and Lemurs, you can add Hyenas, Killer Whales, and Bonobos. Oh, and of course, Meerkats. Ever watch Meerkat Manor?

*edit: You really should watch at least one episode. It's like a soap opera played out with adorable animals

: )

Spotted hyenas are very much matriarchal. Females of this species are larger than males and dominate them in every aspect of their society. Even the lowest-ranked female is dominant over the highest-ranked male.

There are various species in which females are larger and stronger than males, such as boas and pythons, but since these animals are not social you cannot really call them matriarchal.

Certain human societies are matriarchal - here in the UK, we have a queen, for example!

many people have already listed the most common ones but there is also the harris' hawk. it is the only species of raptor which hunt in packs. females are the leaders of the small packs which consist of one dominant female and several males, males are also quite a bit smaller than the females. when the dominant females offspring are old enough to care for themselves she kicks her female offspring out of her territory.

The naked mole rat comes to mind, as do bees, ants and termites.