If you play trivia regularly this will be good information for you. Animals that are gathered together in a group have some very unusual names. Let’s warm up with some well-known common examples. We have: a flock of birds, a herd of cows, a swarm of bees, a gaggle of geese, a school of fish, a pod of whales and a pack of wolves.
The best-known source of many English words used for collective groupings of animals is “The Book of Saint Albans,” which is an essay about hunting published in 1486 attributed to Juliana Berners, an English writer.
Moving on, there are two terms for cats: a clowder for a small cat group and a pride for big cats. Pigs can be a drift or drove, and raccoons can be a gaze, a smack or a committee. Alligators and crocodiles are a congregation, but crocodiles can also be a bask or a float. To be sure you’d better say, “see ya later” or “after a while” and see who responds. Bears are a sleuth or sloth. Boars are a herd or a sounder if there are 12 or more so be sure to count before you label them. Camels are a caravan, which seems appropriate and has a nice ring to it. Can you guess what term applies to Cardinals? That’s right, a conclave.
We have a quiver of cobras and an intrusion of cockroaches. And then there is one of the all-time favorites, a murder of crows. I have recently wanted to be able to identify a crow from a raven on my walks. Tips: Crows are smaller, make a caw caw sound and have a fan shaped tail. Ravens are larger, have deeper croaking calls and wedge-shaped tails with slightly longer middle tail feathers. Ravens have a heavier, more curved bill. Crows tend to walk while ravens hop or walk. Lastly, if the bird utters “nevermore” it’s a raven for sure. A group of ravens is a conspiracy or an unkindness.
A tower of giraffes, a bloat of hippopotamuses or hippopotami and a flamboyance of flamingos. I can do this all day. A cackle of hyenas, a parade or prowl of jaguars and a bloom of jellyfish. A loveliness of ladybugs, a cloud or scourge of mosquitoes and a family or romp of otters. There is a parliament of owls, a paddle of platypus and a prickle of porcupine. You start to see a pattern here. These attributed whimsical names seem to align somewhat with how we humans perceive each animal’s characteristics. Curiously, a flock can also be a group of sheep as well as birds. A crash of rhinoceros, a raft of sea otters and also a rafter of turkeys. A shiver of sharks tells it well. An escargatoire of snails (Excuuuusez moi) a ball, nest or slither of snakes. A scurry of squirrels. An ambush or streak of tigers, or a gang or sneak of weasels. A confusion of wildebeests or a wisdom of wombats. A cohort, dazzle or zeal of zebras.
There you have it, not a complete list but a good start. Many of the above are no longer used but they are absolutely appropriate for trivia night.
The other question we must ask is: What qualifications and life experience must you have to obtain the job of naming these groups? None, though Berners was well versed in heraldry, hunting, hawking and angling. What major in college would prepare for this profession of naming animal groups? Again none, but perhaps zoology with a minor in English with some stand-up comedy on the side. In my research for this article, I came across a submission of a Hootie of Blowfish. I like it!
Jim Cross is a retired Fort Lewis College professor and basketball coach living in Durango. Reach him at cross_j@fortlewis.edu.
