Animal assemblages – owls, bees, flamingos – all have different names. Here’s a look at the lesser-known terms… and often the most poetic.
School of fish, pack of dogs or even swarm of bees, we easily know how to name the groups of animals close to our daily lives. But the French language is full of little-known and sometimes surprising terms to designate other groups of animals.
The marine world
Why are we talking about banc of fish? Because these animals evolve in groups that do not include any hierarchy. Unlike a pack, sardines and herrings move in aggregates. We also speak of schools for jellyfish and squid.
Grouped together, the seals form a haulout. In fact, this term derived from the verb to fail designates a part of a shore where certain animals such as seals and sea lions gather to moult. The term also designates a place where ships run aground.
The basket crabs gave its name to an expression, imbued with the image of the fisherman’s basket inside which crabs walk all over each other. This expression, born in the middle of the 20th century, refers to bad people who intend to harm each other.
In the air
Birds and other flying animals have some of the most poetic group names. Thus, we speak of flamboyance of pink flamingos. This name also means the quality of a brilliant, dazzling person or work.
The term “swarm” is used to name a large troop of insects of a single species, which move in the same direction. We speak in particular of the swarm of bees, which corresponds to a group of bees which separate from the colony and the hive to found a new society. This is how the species prospers.
The partridges, they fly in companies. Butterflies form a cloudbut we are talking about clouds of grasshoppers. The lightness continues with the stolen of sparrows and swallows. The perched refers to a group of bobolinks, these birds of the songbird species whose name comes directly from the Old French adjective gogue (« joie, amusement ») and goguelu in Middle French ( “boastful, strutting”).
A heronryas the name suggests, refers to heron flocks. The starlingsmoving in large numbers in the sky, form a murmur or murmuration. This is an anglicism, taken from the term «murmuration of starlings».
Wild animals
A bit of politics with the parliament of owls and the assembly of baboons. We continue with the pride of lions, led in particular by the females of the group, who hunt and protect their territory. We call crowds the kangaroo herds. The vipers, they, form a node. And the mice, one nest !
For turkeys, elephants, cows or even sheep, we say that they form herds. These concern herbivorous animals, domestic or in the wild. The troupe simply refers to a group of wild animals that naturally live together. Thus, a herd is also a form of troop. Donkeys are the exception that proves the rule: although domesticated, we speak of a troop when they gather together.
Wild boars and deer are moving hardes. These are large groups of wild animals that live together naturally. Often used for herbivores, the term is also used for omnivores. Be careful not to confuse herd and horde, because the latter refers to a group of violent, undisciplined individuals. From this point of view, speaking of hordes of wolves, or other carnivores, constitutes an abuse of language.
Also readEverything You Always Wanted to Know About Animal “Language”
The pack initially refers to a group of canids, which is why we use this word to refer to dogs and wolves. But the pack more broadly qualifies any group of carnivores that hunt together (scavengers, which feed on corpses, are therefore excluded). The members of a pack are organized in a hierarchy.
The term “colony” works equally well with ants, termites or beavers. A few rare species of ants even group together in supercolonies of several hundred million individuals with several queens.
