Language is fascinating and can pique our children’s interest, especially when combined with a subject they love: animals. Collective nouns for animals are a great source of humor and creativity. They evoke feelings (shiver of sharks) or sounds (drumming of woodpeckers), paint images (shimmer of hummingbirds) and even seem to capture an animal’s personality (obstinacy of buffalo, buffoonery of orangutans). We may not use them in everyday life, but that doesn’t make them any less interesting!
(“collective nouns for animals” = words that denote groups of animals of the same kind)
MAMMALS & MARSUPIALS
- aardvarks: an aarmory
- apes: a shrewdness, a troop, a family, a band
- baboons: a rumpus, a troop, a flange
- badgers: a cete, a colony
- bats: a colony, a cauldron, a flock, a camp, a cloud
- bears: a sloth, a sleuth
- beavers: a malocclusion, a colony, a family
- boars: a singular, a sounder, a herd
- buffalo: an obstinacy, a gang, a herd, a troop
- camels: a caravan, a flock, a train, a herd
- cats: a clowder, a destruction, a pounce, a glaring, a cluster, a clutter, a kindle, a litter, a pillow
- cattle: a mob, a herd, a drove, a team, a yoke
- cheetas: a coalition
- coyotes: a wiliness, a pack
- deer: a herd, a parcel, a bunch, a mob, a rangale
- dolphins: a pod, a troop
- dogs: a litter, a pack, a cowardice, a comedy, a cry, a kennel, a mute
- donkeys: a pace, a herd, a coffle, a drove
- elephants: a parade, a herd, a memory
- elk: a gang, a herd
- ferrets: a business
- foxes: a skulk, a leash, an earth
- giraffes: a tower, a totter, a herd, a corps
- goats: a herd, a trip, a drove, a flock, a tribe
- gnus: an implausibility, a herd
- gorillas: a troop, a band, a whoop
- hedgehogs: an array
- hippopotami: a bloat, a thunder, a sea, a herd
- hyenas: a cackle, a clan, a pack
- jaguars: a prowl, a shadow, a leap, a parade
- kangaroos: a mob, a troop, a court, a herd
- lemurs: a conspiracy
- leopards: a leap, a lepe
- lions: a streak, a pride, a sawt
- martens: a richness
- mice: a mischief
- moles: a labor
- monkeys: a machination, troop, a barrel, a carload, a tribe
- mules: a pack, a span, a barren
- orangutans: a buffoonery, a family, a troop, a band
- otters: a romp, a raft
- oxen: a drove, a team, a yoke
- pandas: an embarrassment, a sleuth
- pigs: a drift, a drove, a sounder, a team, a passel, a litter
- platypuses: an impossibility
- polar bears: a pack, an aurora, a celebration
- porcupines: a prickle
- porpoises: a turmoil, a pod, a school, a herd, a shoal
- prairie dogs: a coterie, a colony, a town
- rabbits: a colony, a nest, a warren, a husk, a dawn, a herd, a wrack
- raccoons: a mask, a gaze, a nursery, a committee, a smack, a brace, a troop
- rhinoceroses: a crash, a stubbornness, a herd
- seals: a harem, a herd, a pod, a rookery
- sloths: a bed
- skunks: a stench, a surfeit
- squirrels: a scurry, a dray
- tigers: an ambush, a streak
- unicorns: a marvel
- weasels: a sneak, a gang
- whales: a pod, a gam, a herd, a school
- wolves: a pack, a rout, a route
- wombats: a wisdom
- zebras: a dazzle, a zeal, a herd, a cohort
BIRDS
- albatross: a rookery, a flock, a gam
- buzzards: a wake
- cardinals: a radiance, a college, a conclave, a deck, a Vatican
- chickadees: a banditry, a dissimulation
- chickens: a clutch, a brood, a flock, a peep
- cormorants: a gulp, a flight, a sunning, a swim
- crows: a murder, a horde, an unkindness, a conspiracy, a cauldron, a caucus, a congress, a cowardice, a hover, a mob, a muster, a parcel, a storytelling
- doves: a pitying, a dole, a dule, a flight
- ducks: a safe, a paddling, a raft, a dopping, a plump, a team, a brace, a flock, a badling
- eagles: a jubilee, a convocation, an aerie, a congress, a soar, a spread, a tower
- egrets: a conjugation, an RSVP, a skewer, a wedge
- falcons: a cast, a bazaar, a cadge
- finches: a charm, a trembling, a company, a trimming, a glister
- flamingo: a flamboyance, a stand
- geese: a gaggle, a skein, a chevron, a wedge, a flock
- grouse: a pack, a chorus, a drumming, a covey, a grumbling, a leash
- gulls: a colony, a screech, a squabble, a flotilla, a pack, a scavenging
- hawks: a cast, a kettle, a boil, a knot, a spiraling, a screw, a stream
- herons: a siege, a sedge, a battery, a hedge, a pose, a rookery, a scattering
- hummingbirds: a shimmer, a charm, a bouquet, a hover, a glittering, a tune
- jays: a scold, a party, a band, a cast
- kingfishers: a clique, a concentration, a crown, a rattle, a realm
- larks: an exaltation, an ascension, a chattering, a happiness, a spring
- loons: an asylum, a water dance, a cry
- magpies: a tiding, a charm, a gulp
- mallards: a sorde, a sute, a brace
- narwhals: a blessing
- ostrich: a wobble, a flock, a troop
- owls: a parliament, a bazaar, a glaring, a sagaciousness, a silence, a stooping, a wisdom, a blizzard, a stable, a jail, a prohibition
- parrots: a pandemonium, a company, a prattle
- partridge: a covey, a bevy, a bew, a jugging, a warren
- peacocks: an ostentation, a muster
- pelicans: a pod, a squadron
- penguins: a colony, a waddle, a raft, a rookery, a huddle, a tuxedo
- pheasants: a nye, a flock, a bouquet, a nest, a nide
- pigeons: a dropping, a band, a flight, a kit, a loft, a passel, a plague, a school
- puffins: an improbability, a raft
- puma: a prowl
- quail: a covey, a flock, a bevy
- ravens: an unkindness, a bazaar, a congress, a conspiracy, a constable, a rant, a scatter
- robins: a worm
- rooks: a building, a parliament
- sandpipers: a bind, a contradiction, a fling, a hill, a time-step
- sparrows: a ubiquity, a crew, a flutter, a host, a quarrel, a tribe
- starlings: a clutter, a murmuration, a chattering, a cloud, a constellation, a filth, a scourge, a vulgarity
- storks: a muster
- swallows: a swoop, a gulp, a flight, a kettle, a flight, a richness
- swans: a ballet, a bevy, a drift, a herd, a regatta, a whiteness, a wedge
- swifts: a box, a drift, a swoop, a screaming frenzy
- thrushes: a mutation
- toucans: a durante
- turkeys: a rafter, a gang, a death-row
- vultures: a wake, a kettle, a committee, a cast, a colony
- warblers: a bouquet, a fall, a confusion, a wrench
- woodpeckers: a gatling, a descent, a descension, a drumming, a fall
- wrens: a chime, a herd
- waxwings: an ear-full, a museum
INVERTEBRATES (INSECTS, AMPHIBIANS, ARTHROPODS, GASTROPODS, MOLLLUSKS)
- ants: a colony, an army, a nest, a bike, a swarm
- bees: a swarm, a cast, a cluster, a colony, a drift, an erst, a grist, a hive, a nest, a rabble, a stand
- butterflies: a kaleidoscope, a flutter, a flight, a swarm, a rabble
- caterpillar: an army
- crabs: a cast, a scuttle
- crickets: a crackle
- fireflies: a conflagration
- flies: a business, a cloud, a swarm
- grasshoppers: a cloud, a swarm
- jellyfish: a smack, a bloom, a brood, a fluther, a smuth
- ladybirds/ladybugs: a loveliness
- mosquitoes: a scourge, a swarm, a cloud
- snails: an escargatoire, a walk, a rout
- spiders: a venom
- worms: a bunch
REPTILES and AMPHIBIANS
- alligators: a congregation
- cobras: a quiver
- crocodiles: a bask, a congregation, a float
- frogs: an army
- lizards: a lounge
- rattlesnakes: a rhumba
- toads: a knot, a knab, a nest
- turtles: a bale, a turn, a dole, a nest
- vipers: a generation
FISH
- barracudas: a battery, a school
- eels: a swarm, a bed
- fish: a school
- goldfish: a glint, a troubling
- salmon: a run
- sardines: a family
- sharks: a shiver
- stingrays: a fever
- trout: a hover
Now that you’ve read the long list of collective nouns for animals, which one is your favorite? How do you choose just one?
sources:
- An Exaltation of Larks, James Lipton
- Collective Nouns
- List of Animal Names
For a wall art and homeschool supplies with collective nouns for animals, check out our Collective Nouns of the Wild poster series in our Get the Kids Outside shop.
And for more fascinating details about the natural world, see Fun Facts about Animals to Inspire Your Kids’ Curiosity.