Rivin conjectured that the conjugacy growth series of a hyperbolic group is rational if and only if the group is virtually cyclic. In this talk I will present the proof (joint with Hermiller, Holt and Rees) that the conjugacy growth series of a virtually cyclic group is rational, and then also confirm the other direction of the conjecture, by showing that the conjugacy growth series of a non-elementary hyperbolic group is transcendental (joint with Antolín). The result for non-elementary hyperbolic groups can be used to prove a formal language version of Rivin's conjecture for any finitely generated acylindrically hyperbolic group G, namely that no set of minimal length conjugacy representatives of G can be regular.[-]