Help inspire your kids’ curiosity about the natural world with these fun facts about animals. You might just learn something new!

Fun facts about animals are entertaining, but they can help inspire your child’s curiosity about the animal world. Learning interesting things about animals can inspire awe and wonder and help your children feel more connected to nature. That connection can play an important part in their relationship with animals.

You may not encounter a penguin or hippopotamus on your woodsy stroll, but your child might notice a hummingbird flying backwards or a butterfly ‘tasting’ with its feet. They might in turn feel more invested in animals’ well-being and grow up to defend their environment.

Children are born with a sense of wonder and an affinity for Nature. Properly cultivated, these values can mature into ecological literacy, and eventually into sustainable patterns of living.

Zenobia Barlow

A greater curiosity for and understanding of animals is also a great tool for helping your children face and overcome their fear of insects or other creatures.

MAMMALS & MARSUPIALS

• chipmunks
  • Chipmunks can gather up to 165 acorns in a single day. To temporarily store their food, they use their cheek pouches, which can expand up to three times the size of their head.
  • Similar to their squirrel cousins, some chipmunks are scatter hoarders, hiding their food in thousands of different caches. Others are larder hoarders, hiding their stashes in a ‘larder’ in their burrow.
  • Most chipmunks live in underground burrows, although some make their nests in logs or bushes.
• bats:
  • They are the only flying mammals (though other mammals can glide).
  • They can reach speeds of over 100 miles per hour.
  • Their droppings (guano) can be used to make gunpowder.
  • They are important pollinators. (Over 300 species of fruit depend on bats for pollination.)
  • Some species use echolocation to “see”,
  • others have better eyesight than humans.
• Sloths:
  • From the moment they are born, sloths are able to lift their entire body weight upwards with just one arm.
  • Specialised tendons in their hands and feet lock into place, allowing them to hang upside down for long periods of time without wasting any energy.
  • All sloths are colour-blind, can only see poorly in dim light and are completely blind in bright daylight.
  • Sloths can swim through water three times faster than they can move on the ground.
• raccoons
  • The black markings across raccoons’ eyes allow them to see better – even in the dark – by reducing glare.
  • Their front paws are especially sensitive. Raccoons also use use a technique called “dousing”(dipping their food in water) to heighten their sense of touch, wetting their paws to stimulate the nerve endings.
  • They have adapted to a wide range of habitats, from cities and towns to high mountains.
• skunks
  • A skunk’s odorous spray (which they release as a defense mechanism) has a reach of up to 10 feet, but the smell can be detected up to 1.5 miles away.
  • Before releasing their pungent spray, skunks often perform a warning dance that may include backing away, raising their tail, stomping their feet and – for some – even doing a handstand.
  • Skunks don’t have great eyesight, but they have very good senses of smell and hearing.
  • Skunk spray happens to be highly flammable.
• Chipmunks and other small animals have fast reaction times because they process information more quickly. They are essentially seeing everything around them in slow motion.
• bears
  • Bears don’t actually hibernate! “Bears go into torpor, which while similar to hibernation is different. When in torpor bears reduce both their heart and breathing rate, and their temperature drops, but less so than animals that hibernate.”
  • For bears, Autumn is a time of hyperphagia – a period of excessive eating and drinking to fatten themselves up for hibernation/torpor. They eat and drink almost nonstop. Needing to consume around 10 times their regular intake of food, they roam outside their normal ranges and spend up to 20 hours each day focused on finding more calories.
• In preparation for winter, red squirrels make mushroom jerky by drying out mushrooms and placing them in trees.The blue whale can measure up to 100 feet long. Its heart weighs about 400 pounds.
• Giraffes have black/purple tongues that are around 50 cm long.

• Female lions (lionesses) do 90 percent of the hunting, while males protect the pride.
• zebras‘ stripes may help them ward off insect bites.
• koalas
  • sleep between 18 and 22 hours a day.
  • Koalas’ fingerprints are so similar to humans’ that they might complicate a crime scene.
• polar bears
  • Polar bears can weigh up to 590 kg (1,300 lbs)!
  • They can swim for days at a time. One polar bear was tracked swimming 686 km (426 miles) over nine days, losing 22% of her body weight.
  • Polar bear skin is black! Also, the long “guard” hairs of their fur are both translucent and hollow (but appear white because of the light they reflect).
  • Polar bears can smell a seal on the ice 32 km (20 mi) away and a seal’s breathing hole 1 km (0.6 mi) away.
• walruses
  • Walruses can weigh over 680 kg (1,500 lbs) .
  • Their tusks are very useful in keeping air holes open in the ice, defending themselves against predators, and fighting other walruses. These tusks can grow to over 90 cm (25 in) long!
  • If necessary, walruses can sleep upright in the water, inflating air sacs on their throats to save them from drowning.
• groundhogs:
  • Groundhogs are known my many different names, including: woodchuck, marmot, chuck, wood-shock, groundpig, whistlepig, whistler, thickwood badger, monax, moonack, weenusk, red monk and siffleux. The name “woodchuck” comes from the Algonquin name wuchak, which translates roughly to “digger”.
  • Groundhogs are rodents, belonging to a group of ground squirrels named marmots.
  • Groundhogs are native to North America.
  • Young groundhogs are called chucklings, kits, pups or cubs.
  • They have four incisors (front teeth) that grow 1.5mm or 0.0625in per week. They need to use them constantly to prevent them from growing too long.
  • When alarmed, they make a high-pitched whistle to warn others. (This is why they are sometimes called “whistlepigs”.)
  • Groundhogs hibernate in their burrows for 3-6 months (depending on climate). These burrows can be quite extensive — up to 9 metres (30 feet) in length and on several levels. They can remove up to 2700 kg (3 tons) of dirt when making their homes!
  • Although they spend most of the time on (and under) the ground, they can also swim and climb trees.

BIRDS

• Birds have large respiratory systems that take up one fifth of the space in their body. (In contrast, a mammal’s breathing system takes up only one twentieth of its body.) “Like mammals, birds also use oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. They have special air sacs in addition to their lungs, with hollow bones that allow these gasses to flow around the body more easily. This means that one bird breath goes further and does more work than one mammal breath.” (rspb.uk.org)Chickens are the closest living relatives to the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
• Ostriches have the largest eyes of any land animal, the size of a billiard ball.
• Penguins‘ black/white coloring acts as camouflage in the water: white when viewed from below (looking at the light above) and black when viewed from above (looking at the dark water below)
• Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards, they are the smallest birds (the bee hummingbird weighs only 1.95 grams), they have the smallest eggs (about the size of a pea), and their hearts can beat more than 1200 times per minute when flying.

• Ravens can imitate human speech, sometimes even better than parrots.
• Flamingos eat with their heads upside down.
• Birds can sleep with one eye open and half their brain awake.
• Migrating birds can also partially shut off their brains while flying, taking mid-air naps.
• More than 200 species of birds practice a curious habit called anting: placing or rubbing live or crushed ants among their feathers. It’s not clear why they do this. It may be a form of self-stimulation, or it could be that the formic acid secreted by the ants benefits the birds by:
  • helping to decrease skin irritation
  • helping to control parasites (mites, lice)
  • making the ants easier to eat.
• Baltimore orioles can eat as many as 17 caterpillars in a minute.
• “Peregrine falcons may reach speeds of 200 miles per hour when diving for prey. They use their balled-up talons to knock out their prey, then catch the hapless, falling bird before it hits the ground or water.”

• Why don’t birds fall off their perches when asleep? “Two thin tendons, called flexor tendons, extend from the leg muscles down the back of the tarsus bone and attach to the toes. When a bird lands on a perch, these tendons tighten and so the toes lock around the perch. This involuntary reflex keeps a sleeping bird from falling off a perch. The tendons stay tight until the legs straighten.”
• starlings – murmuration
  • murmuration: the phenomenon that results when hundreds, sometimes thousands, of starlings fly in swooping, intricately coordinated patterns through the sky (NPR)
  • WHY? “Starlings can pack themselves into a roosting site… at more than 500 birds per cubic metre, sometimes in flocks of several million birds. Such high concentrations of birds would be a tempting target for predators. No bird wants to be the one that a predator picks off, so safety in numbers is the name of the game, and swirling masses create a confusion effect preventing a single individual being targeted.“ (phys.org)
  • HOW? “[O]ne bird affects its seven closest neighbors, and each of those neighbors’ movements affect their closest seven neighbors and so on through the flock. This is how a flock is able to look like a twisting, morphing cloud with some parts moving in one direction at one speed and other parts moving at another direction and at another speed.” (Treehugger)
• wild turkeys
  • An adult turkey has 5,000 – 6,000 feathers on its body.
  • Wild turkeys are relatively fast, reaching speeds of up to 18 miles per hour on foot and up to 50 miles per hour in flight.
  • adult male = tom; adult female = hen; juvenile male = jake; juvenile female = jennie; young chick = poult
  • You can tell the sex and age of a wild turkey from its droppings: male droppings are j-shaped, female droppings are spiral-shaped. The larger the dropping, the older the bird.
  • The name “turkey” comes from the country of Turkey, through which the birds were transported on their way to European markets.
• puffins
  • Puffin beaks change color, becoming duller in the winter and brighter once spring arrives.
  • Puffin tongues have special features which allow them to hold on to multiple fish in their beaks while hunting/diving. It’s usually an average of 10 fish, but one special puffin broke the record with 62 fish!
  • Puffins have to flap their wings very quickly to stay aloft (400 beats/minute).

INVERTEBRATES (INSECTS, AMPHIBIANS, ARTHROPODS, GASTROPODS, MOLLUSKS)

• There are close to a million species of insects around the world, with a possible 30 times that number yet to be discovered.
• All bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs. Technically, “bugs” are an order of insects called Hemiptera.
• bees
  • A bumblebee flaps its wings about 200 times per second.
  • Honeybee foragers have to (collectively) travel over 55,000 miles (88,514 km) and visit about 2 million flowers to collect enough nectar to make one pound of honey. The average forager will only make about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
  • The average worker honey bee visits 50-100 flowers in a single collection trip.
  • The worker honey bee can carry pollen and nectar equal to 80% her body weight.
  • A bee has a sense of smell as much as 100 times more powerful than a human’s.
• Caterpillars have 12 eyes.
• Butterflies
  • Butterflies taste with their feet
  • In the fall, millions of monarchs fly south from Canada and the US to southern California and Mexico. During the up-to-3000 mile (1649 km) migration south, a monarch will travel as many as 100 miles (161 km) per day. The entire migration cycle involves four generations.
  • Male butterflies will sometimes sip moisture from mud puddles to supplement their nectar diet with minerals and salts. (This behavior is called “puddling”.)
  • Butterflies prefer temperatures of 82-100 degrees Fahrenheit (28-38 degrees Celcius. Any colder and they need to warm up their flight muscles by either basking in the sun or shivering. If the temperature drops below 55 degrees F (13 degrees C), they can’t fly at all.
  • When resting, they hold their wings folded behind their backs.

• flies
  • True flies only have one set of wings. (Unlike butterflies and dragonflies which have two pairs.)
  • There are more than 100,000 different species of flies.
  • Without teeth, flies are unable to chew their food. Instead, they spit out enzymes to turn solid food into a liquid they can suck up through their proboscis.
  • Midges (tiny flies) are one of the fly species that serve as pollinators. You’ll appreciate them even more when you learn they are the primary pollinator for the cacao tree.
  • The horsefly can fly up to 90 mph (144 km/h).
  • The adult timber fly is considered the world’s largest fly and can grow up to 3.15 in (8 cm) long.
• water striders
  • The water [strider]’s legs are so buoyant they can support fifteen times the insect’s weight without sinking. They can stay afloat in adverse conditions like waves or a rainstorm.
  • Water striders have three pairs of legs, arranged as grabbers, paddlers and brakes.
  • On water, these insects are very fast, reaching speeds of approximately 100 body lengths per second.
• dragonflies:
  • They can eat between 3-100 mosquitoes per day.
  • They only eat prey they catch while flying.
  • They have been around for 300 million years and once had wingspans of up to 2 feet (0.6 m).
  • They have the longest migration of any insect. The globe skimmer dragonfly is only 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) long, and scientists estimate that during its migration, the globe skimmer flies 4,400 miles (7,081 km) without landing.
• cicadas:
  • Periodical cicadas have one of the longest insect lifespans (13 or 17 years), though only 2-6 weeks are spent aboveground.
  • Cicadas emerge in densities of more than a million per acre, or around 25-30 per square foot.
  • By emerging in masses, cicadas overwhelm their predators, who fill up and can’t eat any more.
  • In a full-scale emergence, the mating call of male cicadas can reach over 100 decibels, louder than a chainsaw or lawnmower.
• earthworms:
  • Worms play an important role in aerating soil, allowing the passage of air, water, nutrients and minerals.
  • Worms breathe through their skin and have 5 ‘hearts’ (aortic arches).
  • Worms can regenerate some segments of their body.
  • Earthworms can push 10 times their body weight (think human to polar bear), and tiny hatchlings can push 500 times their body weight (think human to humpback whale).
  • The sun’s UV rays can be harmful to worms, so they are generally only seen at the surface in cloudy or wet weather.

• ladybugs / ladybirds / ladybeetles
  • “The name ‘ladybug’ was coined by European farmers who prayed to the Virgin Mary when pests began eating their crops. After ladybugs came and wiped out the invading insects, the farmers named them ‘beetle of Our Lady.’ This eventually was shortened to ‘lady beetle’ and ‘ladybug.’” (NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
  • Their coloring and spots are a warning to predators that they taste terrible!
  • They are technically beetles, not bugs.
  • There are 5,000 species around the world, not all of them red (some yellow, orange, brown, pink, black).

• ants
  • A leafcutter ant can carry up to 50 times its body weight and lifts objects by using only its jaws.
  • A field ant’s neck can hold 5,000 times its body weight.
  • The trap jaw ant can close its jaws very quickly — at approximately 100 mph (161 km/h).
  • Ants don’t have ears, but ‘listen’ through their feet by feeling vibrations from the ground.
  • Ants communicate with pheremones (chemical signals) to alert other ants to danger, attract a mate, and leave a trail to a food source.
  • A giant ant supercolony was found in Argentina in 2000. It housed 33 ant populations (millions of nests, billions of workers) and was over 3,700 miles (5955 km) wide.
• moths
  • Moths are mimicry masters, impersonating less palatable animals or blending in with their environment.
  • They are often considered pests (especially in agriculture), but some are also important pollinators.
  • Moths have an excellent sense of ‘smell’, using their antennae. A male moth can detect a single molecule from a female more than 7 miles (11.3 km) away!
  • Their wingspan varies greatly from species to species: an African micromoth (0.08 in / 2 mm) vs. a white witch moth (11 in / 28 cm).
  • When at rest, they hold their wings open.
• roly polies / potato bugs / wood bugs
  • Not actually bugs, not even insects — these “bugs” are actually terrestrial crustaceans.
  • Various names: roly poly, potato bug, isopod, tiggy-hog, parson-pig, cheesy bug, slater bug, woodlouse, pill bug, doodle bug.
  • Their defense mechanisms include rolling up into a ball for protection, as well as and releasing an odor.
  • They like dark, moist environments.
  • They play an important role as decomposers.
• slugs
  • Land-living slugs have four retractable tentacles: two for seeing and smelling, two for touching and tasting.
  • Slug slime is a liquid crystal that facilitates locomotion, keeps their skin moist, protects them from fungi and bacteria, and helps them find a mate.
  • They come in a variety of colors including brown, black, yellow, green, pink, red and blue.
  • Slugs can stretch up to 20 times their length when squeezing through small spaces in search of food.
  • They play an important role by eating detritus and producing fertilizer.
• wasps
  • Wasps live on every continent except Antarctica.
  • Wasp nests are made from the ‘paper’ they make by chewing and spitting out pieces of wood/bark.
  • Wasps can be distinguished from bees by their narrower ‘waists’ and pointed (not rounded) lower abdomens.
  • A queen wasp forms a new colony every Spring.
  • Only female wasps have stingers, making them the primary protectors of the nest/queen.
  • Wasps play an important role as pest controllers. They are also important pollinators.
• Salamanders (like other amphibians) are known as “indicator species” due to their sensitivity to environmental change and pollution. They provide environmentalists with important insight into how an ecosystem is functioning.
• grasshoppers
  • Grasshoppers’ hind legs act like catapults, allowing them to jump high in the air. If humans had comparable jumping abilities, they would be able to leap more than the length of a football field.
  • Grasshoppers’ “ears” are on their bellies/abdomens.
  • Their noises are made through stridulation (rubbing their hind legs against their forewings) or by crepitation, loudly snapping their wings as they fly.
• spiders:
  • spiders are not insects (3 body segments, 6 legs), they are arachnids (2 body segments, 8 legs)
  • spider silk is one of the strongest natural materials on earth; a spider’s dragline silk is several times stronger than steel on a weight-for-weight basis
  • much of a spider’s movement is not controlled by muscles, but by “hydraulic power”, pumping fluid into their legs, causing them to extend
  • it is estimated that the world’s spiders eat 400-800 million tons of insects and invertebrates annually, helping to keep insect pests in check
• stick insects
  • Stick insects are known for their ability to camouflage themselves to look like a stick, leaf or twig. Some are also able to change color in order to blend in better with their background.
  • ‘Autotomy’ is one of the stick insect’s defense strategies, which involves detaching its own leg in order to escape a predator. (This limb is regenerated after molting.)
  • Another defense strategy is ‘thanatosis’ , where they drop to the ground and play dead, staying very still.
  • In 2017, a stick insect was declared to be the longest insect in the world, measuring 25 inches (64 cm) with its legs outstretched.
• crickets
  • Crickets can jump as far as 60 times their body length.
  • Like grasshoppers, they make their noises through stridulation, but do so by rubbing their wings together (a scraping organ on one wing against a comb-like organ on another).
  • Every species of cricket has its own unique chirp.
  • You can use the frequency of a cricket’s chirp to calculate the approximate temperature outside. To calculate the temperature in Fahrenheit, count the number of chirps in 14 seconds and add 40. To calculate it in Celsius, count the number of chirps in 25 seconds, divide the number by 3 and add 4. (Farmer’s Almanac)
  • Some consider crickets to be the food of the future, as they are high-protein, packed with vitamins, and have much less impact on the environment than conventional meat.
• praying mantis
  • When waiting for prey, praying mantises hold their front legs up, as if in peaceful prayer. But when they are ready to attack, they do so with with lightning speed.
  • Not only do praying mantises have a very stereo vision and a wide field of vision, they can also see in 3D.
  • Unlike other insects, they can turn their heads 180 degrees.
• stink bugs
  • Stink bugs release foul odors when threatened, when crushed, or to attract a mate.
  • They can’t tolerate cold weather and often make their way into homes to survive winter.
  • Stink bugs are native to Southeast Asia but hopped a ride on a fruit crate and arrived in North America in 1988.
  • They communicate with each other by using their abdomens to vibrate the plants they’re sitting on.
• fireflies
  • Fireflies are also known as lightning bugs, glow flies, moon bugs, golden sparklers, lantern flies, fire beetles and fire devils.
  • These beetles emit light to communicate: to attract a mate, to defend territory, to warn predators.
  • Their bioluminescence is very efficient: nearly 100% of the energy is emitted as light, not heat (“cold light”).
  • They are found on every continent except Antarctica.
  • Each species has its own flash pattern.
  • They produce light in their lanterns (part of their abdomens) by combining the chemical luciferin and oxygen with the enzyme luciferase.
  • Not all fireflies can produce light.
• cockroaches
  • Because they use openings in their bodies to breath and don’t need their brains for basic functions, cockroaches can live for a week without their head.
  • Roaches are older than dinosaurs! Modern cockroaches have been around for approximately 200 million years, and there are roach fossils that date from 350 million years ago.
  • Cockroaches can survive for up to a week without food. (But only a week without water.)
  • They are relatively fast, some species moving at speeds of up to 3.4 mph (5.4 km/h). The equivalent for humans would be 210 mph (300 km/h).
• ground beetles
  • Ground beetles prefer moist habitats and can be found living under rocks, logs, bark and leaves.
  • They have long legs and shiny, ridged black or brown wing covers.
  • Some ground beetles are used in pest control for agriculture as they feed on pests including aphids, moth larvae, beetle larvae, and mites.
  • Ground beetles can lift up to 40 times their own weight.

WINTER SURVIVAL

Animals’ winter survival techniques include:

• migration (e.g., butterflies, birds, elk)
• hibernation (e.g., groundhogs, wood frogs, bats)
• torpor (e.g., bears, squirrels, raccoons)
• brumation (e.g., turtles, snakes)
• changing color (e.g., snowshoe hares, arctic foxes)
• thicker coats (e.g., mountain goats, moose)
• making their own ‘antifreeze’ (e.g., insects, fish)

COLLECTIVE NOUNS

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 and are simply fascinating!

MAMMALS & MARSUPIALS

• aardvarks: an armory
• 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, MOLLUSKS)

• 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
• 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

sources:

• An Exaltation of Larks, James Lipton
• Collective Nouns
• List of Animal Names

Check out our Collective Nouns of the Wild poster series in our Get the Kids Outside shop.