Animal Group Names: A Pride of Lions, a Murder of Crows and More

Where do animal group names come from?

Most of the quirky names are called “terms of venery,” from venery, an old word for hunting. In late medieval England, knowing the correct, fancy term for each animal was a mark of good breeding, much like knowing which fork to use at dinner. The fashion came to England from France, and over the 14th and 15th centuries the lists grew longer and more playful.

The earliest known collection of animal group terms in any European everyday language appears in a 13th-century treatise by Walter of Bibbesworth. A manuscript from around 1452 lists about 70 terms. The most famous source is the Book of Saint Albans, printed in 1486 and partly credited to Juliana Berners, which lists 164 “companies of beasts and fowls.”

Many of those 164 entries were jokes rather than hunting jargon. The same list includes “a sentence of judges” and “a melody of harpers,” which shows that the writers were having fun with language. Most of the terms fell out of use in the 16th century. They were revived in the 20th century, especially after James Lipton’s 1968 book An Exaltation of Larks, which also encouraged readers to invent new ones.

A–Z table of animal group names

Group names people really use

A small set of plain words does almost all the work in real life, in field guides and in scientific papers:

• Herd for grazing mammals such as deer, zebras, bison and elephants.
• Flock for birds and sheep.
• School and shoal for fish. A shoal is any group of fish that stays together; a school is a shoal swimming in the same direction in a coordinated way.
• Swarm for insects in motion, and colony for social insects, bats and nesting seabirds.
• Pack for wolves and African wild dogs, which hunt and raise pups together. See how many wolves are in a pack.
• Pod for whales and dolphins.
• Troop for monkeys and baboons.

A few more specific terms are also genuine technical vocabulary. Lion researchers speak of a pride, and groups of male lions or cheetahs are called coalitions; there is more in what is a group of lions called? Spotted hyenas live in clans, sea otters and ducks resting on the water form rafts, and penguin chicks gather in creches while their parents feed at sea.

Medieval terms that survived

Some medieval terms have lasted more than 500 years, mostly because they are memorable:

• A murder of crows. The Book of Saint Albans lists “a murther of crowys.” The phrase probably draws on old associations between crows, death and battlefields. Real gatherings of American crows, such as huge winter roosts, are simply called flocks or roosts by ornithologists. More in what is a group of crows called?
• An unkindness of ravens. Ravens were once seen as poor parents, which may explain the name.
• An exaltation of larks. Skylarks sing as they rise high into the sky, so the name fits.
• A skulk of foxes, describing an animal that slips quietly along hedges.
• A gaggle of geese, one of the few medieval terms in everyday speech, along with the pride of lions.
• A murmuration of starlings. The medieval list says “a murmuracion of stares.” Today it describes the swirling evening flocks of tens of thousands of European starlings that gather over reed beds and piers in winter.
• A charm of goldfinches, perhaps from an old word for the chatter of many birds.

Modern inventions: crash, tower, dazzle and bloat

Many of the names shared on social media have nothing to do with medieval England. Animals such as rhinos, giraffes, hippos, zebras, flamingos and wombats were not part of English hunting life, and their collective nouns are modern additions:

• A crash of rhinos, a nod to their bulk and short tempers. White rhinos live in small groups, while black rhinos are mostly solitary.
• A tower of giraffes, because of their height.
• A bloat of hippos, after their round bodies.
• A dazzle of zebras, after the bold stripes that may confuse predators and biting flies.
• A flamboyance of flamingos, for their bright pink color.
• A shiver of sharks and a smack of jellyfish, which play on how people feel about them.
• A wisdom of wombats and a bask of crocodiles, which are pure word play.

When a writer for the National Audubon Society asked scientists who study these animals, many had never heard terms like “a bask of crocodiles” or “a wisdom of wombats” used in their work.

What about a parliament of owls?

“A parliament of owls” is one of the best-loved group names, yet it does not appear in the Book of Saint Albans. It echoes Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th-century poem The Parlement of Foules, a “parliament of birds” in which birds gather to choose their mates. C. S. Lewis later used “A Parliament of Owls” as a chapter title in The Silver Chair (1953), where wise owls hold a night-time meeting.

In nature, most owls hunt and roost alone or in pairs, so a large group of owls is rare. Long-eared owls are an exception: in winter they sometimes share communal roosts in dense trees.

Why some animals have more than one group name

Several animals have different names depending on what they are doing. Geese on the ground or water are a gaggle, but in a V-shaped formation in the sky they are a skein. Ducks swimming together can be a paddling or a raft. Hawks and vultures rising in circles on warm air currents are called a kettle, a term hawk watchers use when hundreds of broad-winged hawks spiral upward together during fall migration.

Young animals sometimes have their own group words as well. A litter of kittens can be called a kindle, and a group of lion or penguin young a creche. For the names of individual young animals, from cub to cygnet, see our baby animal names.

How to use group names correctly

In American English, collective nouns usually take a singular verb: “A pod of dolphins is following the boat.” British English often allows a plural verb when the speaker is thinking of the individuals: “The pod are feeding.”

If you are writing for a science class or a report, use the plain terms: herd, flock, school, colony, pack, troop or pod. Save the medieval and modern inventions for quizzes, stories and fun. Dictionary makers look for words that people use in ordinary writing without needing to explain them, which is why “pride” and “gaggle” are standard dictionary words while “a crash of rhinos” usually comes with an explanation.