Collective Names for Animals

We've gathered together a list of 60 groups of animals and their collective nouns - some
animal groups can have more than one collective noun - that you may or may not have
heard of. Whenever animals gather in groups, they are formally called:

 Apes: a shrewdness
 Badgers: a cete
 Bats: a colony, cloud or camp
 Bears: a sloth or sleuth
 Bees: a swarm
 Buffalo: a gang or obstinacy
 Camels: a caravan
 Cats: a clowder or glaring; Kittens: a litter or kindle; Wild cats: a destruction
 Cobras: a quiver
 Crocodiles: a bask
 Crows: a murder
 Dogs: a pack; Puppies: a litter
 Donkeys: a drove
 Eagles: a convocation
 Elephants: a parade
 Elk: a gang or a herd
 Falcons: a cast
 Ferrets: a business
 Fish: a school
 Flamingos: a stand
 Foxes: a skulk or leash
 Frogs: an army
 Geese: a gaggle
 Giraffes: a tower
 Gorillas: a band
 Hippopotami: a bloat
 Hyenas: a cackle
 Jaguars: a shadow
 Jellyfish: a smack
 Kangaroos: a troop or mob
 Lemurs: a conspiracy
 Leopards: a leap
 Lions: a pride
 Moles: a labor
 Monkeys: a barrel or troop
 Mules: a pack
 Otters: a family
 Oxen: a team or yoke
 Owls: a parliament
 Parrots: a pandemonium
 Pigs: a drift or drove (younger pigs), or a sounder or team (older pigs)
 Porcupines: a prickle
 Rabbits: a herd
 Rats: a colony
 Ravens: an unkindness
 Rhinoceroses: a crash
 Shark: a shiver
 Skunk: a stench
 Snakes: a nest
 Squirrels: a dray or scurry
 Stingrays: a fever
 Swans: a bevy or game (if in flight: a wedge)
 Tigers: an ambush or streak
 Toads: a knot
 Turkeys: a gang or rafter
 Turtles: a bale or nest
 Weasels: a colony, gang or pack
 Whales: a pod, school, or gam
 Wolves: a pack
 Zebras: a zeal

The 34 oddest names for groups of animals

AlexLockie

Mar5,2016,2:46AM

You probably know that a group of wolves is called a pack, or that a group of
puppies is called a litter, but there are many collective nouns for animals that are much
less well-known, and frankly very strange.

Find the oddest of these collective nouns in the slides below:

A shrewdness of apes

Facebook / Lincoln Park Zoo

A congregation of alligators

REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
A cauldron of bats

Flickr / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters

A sloth or sleuth of bears

Marek Novak/Shutterstock
A gang or an obstinacy of buffalo

Two buffaloes gather by the waters of the Chebayesh marsh in Nassiriya, southeast of Baghdad, February 11,
2015. Picture taken February 11, 2015. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
A clowder, clutter, pounce, dout, nuisance, glorying, or
a glare of cats

Cats crowd around village nurse and Ozu city official Atsuko Ogata as she carries a bag of cat food to the
designated feeding place on Aoshima Island in Ehime prefecture in southern Japan February 25,
2015. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
An army of caterpillars

Larvae of Craesus septentrionalis, a sawfly showing 6 pairs of pro-legs. Lilly M via Wikimedia Commons
A caravan of camels

Tinou Bao/flickr
A coalition of cheetahs

Cheetahs in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Filip Lachowski via Wikimedia Commons
A murder of crows

Flickr/Sheila Sund
A cowardice of dogs

Twitter/@MuttsCantina
A pod of dolphins

Dolphins and whales jump out of the water at a media preview for the Epson Aqua Park Shinagawa aquarium's
re-opening in Tokyo, July 6, 2015. REUTERS/Toru Hanai
A convocation of eagles

REUTERS/ Lucy Nicholson

A parade of elephants

Mario Tama/Getty
A business of ferrets

Malene Thyssen
An army of frogs
A tower of giraffes

Flickr/kimvanderwaal
A flamboyance of flamingos

Snow falls on a flock of flamingos standing on a snow-covered field at a wildlife zoo in Hefei, Anhui province
January 29, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer
A bloat, or a thunder of hippopotamuses

Graeme Shannon/BMC Ecology Image Competition

A smack of jellyfish

bi
A troop or mob of kangaroos

REUTERS/Stefan Postles
A conspiracy of lemurs

Shutterstock
A troop or barrel of monkeys

Flickr/Chris Murray
A romp, a family, or a raft of otters

canopic/Flickr
A prickle of porcupines

A pair of North American porcupines in their habitat in Quebec. Mattnad via Wikimedia Commons
An unkindness of ravens

Wikimedia Commons
A colony or warren of rabbits

Stephanie Broekarts
A crash of rhinoceroses

Courtesy of San Diego Zoo

A dray or scurry of squirrels

Flickr / Peter Trimming

An ambush or streak of tigers

Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS

A rafter, gang, or posse of turkeys

Bongan via Wikimedia Commons

A venue of vultures

File photo of vultures feasting on a road kill in Great Falls Virginia Thomson Reuters
A wisdom of wombats

Shutterstock.com
A zeal of zebras

Flickr / Wild in Africa.

NEWSLETTER