Groups of animals are usually called collective nouns , like “a herd of cows” or “a flock of birds.” These terms can be standard and practical, or funny and poetic.

Quick Scoop: What Are Groups of Animals Called?

In English, we use special words to describe groups of the same animal. These can be:

  • Everyday terms you’ve probably heard: herd, flock, pack.
  • Traditional “fancy” terms from older hunting and literary traditions: a murder of crows, a parliament of owls.
  • Modern playful inventions that spread online and in books: people keep adding creative new group names for fun.

These words are also called collective nouns or “terms of venery” (an old phrase from hunting culture).

Classic Examples

Here are some of the best-known real examples:

  • A herd of cows, deer, or elephants.
  • A flock of birds or sheep.
  • A pack of dogs or wolves.
  • A pride of lions.
  • A school of fish.
  • A gaggle of geese (on land) or a flock of geese (in flight).
  • A murder of crows.
  • A parliament of owls.
  • A flamboyance of flamingos.

Many animals also have more than one accepted group name, depending on context or tradition.

Fun & Weird Ones

Some of the most entertaining names sound almost fictional, but they’re recorded in dictionaries, wildlife blogs, or language histories:

  • A shrewdness of apes.
  • A business of ferrets.
  • A charm of finches or goldfinches.
  • A bloat of hippopotamuses.
  • A kaleidoscope of butterflies.
  • A tower of giraffes.
  • A mob of kangaroos.
  • A dazzle or zeal of zebras.

Language nerds on forums love discussing where these come from and which ones actually get used in real life.

Why So Many Names?

  • Many terms started in late medieval England, where hunting manuals listed creative “terms of venery” as a kind of word game and social fashion.
  • Some common ones (herd, flock, pack, school) stuck because they’re useful for everyday speech.
  • The wilder, more poetic ones are partly traditional and partly modern viral inventions that spread via books, blogs, and social media.

So when you ask “what are groups of animals called,” the general answer is: they’re called collective nouns , and specific animals have their own traditional or playful group names.

TL;DR:
Groups of animals are called collective nouns like herd, flock, pack, pride, school, and more imaginative ones such as a murder of crows or a parliament of owls.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.