Groups of Animals Trivia
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97 free Groups of Animals trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
What do you call a group of owls, flamingos, ferrets or jellyfish? This groups of animals trivia quiz is built entirely around collective nouns, the odd and often beautiful words English uses for animals in company. It runs from the ones almost everyone knows (a pride of lions, a gaggle of geese) through the crowd-pleasers (a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, a crash of rhinos) to the genuinely obscure: the word for cardinals, toucans, lapwings and skunks. A handful of questions flip the format and ask which animal a term belongs to, and a few cover where the words came from, including the 15th-century hunting book that invented most of them and why modern scientists rarely use them. It suits a family game night, a classroom vocabulary round or a pub quiz picture-free round, with easy openers and some real stumpers at the end. Every answer is checked against the documented lists of collective nouns rather than social-media graphics, and the same list is used throughout so alternative terms are noted in the explanations.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is a group of crows called?
A murder
A murder of crows is the traditional term, though ornithologists rarely use it; winter crow roosts can number in the tens of thousands of birds.
Q 02What is a group of owls called?
A parliament
Owls are mostly solitary hunters, so a real 'parliament' is a rare sight outside the breeding season.
Q 03What is a group of lions called?
A pride
A pride of lions is the standard term; a pride is built around a core of related lionesses and their cubs, with one or a few adult males attached.
Q 04What is a group of geese on the ground called?
A gaggle
A gaggle of geese is the term for the birds on the ground or water; once airborne the flock takes a separate set of flight terms.
Q 05What is a group of geese in flight called?
A skein
Skein originally meant a length of coiled yarn, a nod to the long trailing lines geese fly in.
Q 06What is a group of flamingos called?
A flamboyance
A flamboyance of flamingos is the popular term, with 'stand' as the plainer alternative; East African soda lakes can hold flocks of over a million lesser flamingos.
Q 07What is a group of ravens called?
An unkindness
An unkindness of ravens is the traditional term, recorded in 15th-century English hunting lists and reflecting the bird's dark reputation in folklore.
Q 08What is a group of larks called?
An exaltation
An exaltation of larks appears in 15th-century English hunting lists and gave James Lipton the title of his 1968 book on collective nouns.
Q 09What is a group of ferrets called?
A business
A business of ferrets is the traditional term, from the older spelling 'busyness'; ferrets are relentlessly active whenever they are awake.
Q 10What is a group of rhinoceroses called?
A crash
Adult rhinos are largely solitary, so a crash is usually a mother with calves or a loose group at a waterhole.
Q 11What is a group of hippopotamuses called?
A bloat
A bloat of hippos is the popular term; hippos spend the day packed together in rivers and lakes and come ashore at night to graze.
Q 12What is a group of giraffes called?
A tower
A tower of giraffes is the popular term, though 'herd' is used just as often because giraffe groups are loose and change membership constantly.
Q 13What is a group of zebras called?
A dazzle
A dazzle of zebras plays on the idea that massed stripes make it hard for a predator to single out one animal; 'zeal' is another recorded term.
What is a group of jellyfish called?
Q 21What is a group of cockroaches called?
An intrusion
An intrusion of cockroaches is the listed term, and it fits: cockroaches are among the most common household pests on every inhabited continent.
Q 22What is a group of ladybugs called?
A loveliness
A loveliness of ladybugs is the listed term; ladybugs cluster in huge numbers to overwinter, sometimes coating whole walls and tree trunks.
Q 23What is a group of turkeys called?
A rafter
Rafter is the traditional term, though 'flock' is what most farmers actually say.
Q 24What is a group of turtles called?
A smack
A smack of jellyfish is the traditional folk term; marine biologists usually say 'bloom' for a sudden jellyfish population explosion.
Q 15What is a group of porcupines called?
A prickle
Porcupines are mostly solitary, so a prickle is usually a family sharing a den in winter.
Q 16What is a group of hedgehogs called?
An array
An array of hedgehogs is the term modern lists give; hedgehogs are solitary, so the word sees far more use in quizzes than in hedgerows.
Q 17What is a group of penguins on land called?
A waddle
A waddle of penguins is the term for the birds on land; in the water the same group becomes a raft.
Q 18What is a group of wombats called?
A wisdom
A wisdom of wombats is the term modern lists give; wombat researchers rarely use it, since the animals are largely solitary burrowers.
Q 19What is a group of cheetah males called?
A coalition
A coalition is the biologists' term for male cheetahs, often brothers, that band together for life to hold a territory; females live alone.
Q 20What is a group of tigers called?
An ambush
An ambush of tigers is the popular term, with 'streak' as the alternative; tigers are solitary, so either word is almost purely literary.
A bale
A bale of turtles is the traditional term; sea turtles gather in numbers only at nesting beaches, where thousands of females can come ashore at once.
Q 25What is a group of toads called?
A knot
A knot of toads is the traditional term; toads gather in writhing tangles at spring breeding ponds, which is exactly what the word describes.
Q 26What is a group of foxes called?
A skulk
Skulk captures the fox's reputation for slinking; leash and earth are the other listed terms.
Q 27What is a group of hyenas called?
A cackle
A cackle of hyenas is the listed term; spotted hyenas really do produce a laughing call, and biologists call their social groups clans.
Q 28What is a group of lemurs called?
A conspiracy
A conspiracy of lemurs is the listed term; ring-tailed lemur groups can number more than 20 animals and are led by females.
Q 29What is a group of apes called?
A shrewdness
A shrewdness of apes is the traditional term, recorded in 15th-century English lists; 'shrewd' then meant mischievous rather than clever.
Q 30What is a group of otters called?
A romp
A romp of otters is the traditional term, from their playful tumbling; sea otters floating together holding paws are instead called a raft.