What’s a Group of ______ Called?

First posted on 05-19-2011

Most of us have heard that a group of wolves is called a pack, that whales travel together in pods and that quail hang around in a covey. But did you know that a school of trout isn’t a school at all? Instead, it’s a hover. And bass neither hover nor school, they are a shoal when two or more are gathered together in a group. Geese have two names depending on whether they are on the ground in a gaggle, or in flight as a skein.

It seems there are nearly as many names for groups of animals as there are groups of animals.

Some of the names are aptly awarded, like a tower of giraffes, a bloat of hippos, a romp of otters and a prickle of porcupines. There’s also the stately parliament of owls that seems to fit those wise old birds.

But a few group names have me scratching my head. Like a smack of jellyfish, or the even more confusing kettle or boil in which hawks congregate if they are flying in large numbers (the former) or spiraling in flight (the latter).

However the names were derived, Dave Fellows of the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center did some homework and put together a nice list of a wide variety of animals and their group name. The list is even sorted by whether the critters are mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, fish or invertebrates.

The address for Dave’s list is: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/about/faqs/animals/names.htm#top

Check it out and discover who travels in a sedge, which flocks are murders, what you could get a knot of, and which animals assemble in cete.

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