From a grumble of pugs to a kindle of kittens, these funny names for groups of animals offer the right word for every animal pack under the sun.
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A grumble of pugs
How to remember: “I hate work,” one pug grumbled to the grumble of pugs. “The boss treats us like dogs.”
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A kindle of kittens
How to remember: Our daughter read CatStronauts on her tablet, cooing over a kindle of kittens on her Kindle.
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An embarrassment of pandas
How to remember: The newlywed embarrassment of pandas could not mate on command—much to their embarrassment.
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A prickle of hedgehogs
How to remember: Snoozing in the sun, I woke to a prickle on my cheek. It was a prickle of hedgehogs scampering all over my face.
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A bloat of hippopotamuses
How to remember: The bloat of hippopotamuses felt bloated after lunch, but thankfully, it was a short walk back to the swamp from the drive-thru.
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A mischief of mice
How to remember: A mischief of mice discussed how they might scam more cheese. “What if we pretend to be blind?” one said, mischievously.
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A dropping of ducks
How to remember: After slipping in a puddle of duck droppings, father angrily stormed around looking for the dropping of ducks that dropped it.
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A waddle of penguins
How to remember: After he ate all his krill, the penguin waddled back to the waddle of penguins to try to score some more.
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A memory of elephants
How to remember: They say an elephant never forgets. But a memory of elephants never forgets to smell awful.
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A flamboyance of flamingos
How to remember: The flamboyance of flamingos fluttered flamboyantly into the fairgrounds, flopping their feet and flapping their feathers.
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A bouquet of hummingbirds
How to remember: My wife thought she was getting a bouquet of flowers for Valentine’s Day, but I’m much more creative than that. When she unwrapped her gift, a bouquet of hummingbirds fluttered out.
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A whoop of gorillas
How to remember: Our seats were right on the 50-yard line, but unfortunately, we were near an annoying whoop of gorillas whooping for the other team.
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A dazzle of zebras
How to remember: “Dazzle me,” the pop star told the dazzle of zebra dancers as they unpacked their sequins and clomped on the stage behind her.
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A raft of otters
How to remember: We were rafting downriver when a raft of otters capsized our boat. “You otter know we don’t take kindly to strangers,” their tiny chief barked at us. Even while wet, it was hard not to laugh.
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A concerto of crickets
How to remember: It was a beautiful July night, perfect for a concert by a concerto of crickets. Unfortunately, they were too tiny to lift their heavy instruments, so we demanded our money back.
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A blessing of unicorns
How to remember: A blessing of unicorns was prancing across the rainbow when one sneezed pixie dust all over his friends. “Bless you,” the blessing brayed.
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A wisdom of wombats
How to remember: I once stumbled upon a wisdom of wombats in the woods. They were quietly puffing on homemade corncob pipes and discussing Walden.
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An aurora of polar bears
How to remember: We weren’t able to see the aurora borealis in Alaska, but at dawn, an aurora of polar bears gave us a kiss good morning. So that was almost as special.
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A scurry of squirrels
How to remember: First, just the one squirrel scurried onto our blanket. But then an entire scurry of squirrels scurried up to us. It was nuts.
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A husk of hares
How to remember: The husk of hares ate corn husks at dusk, wondering whether a colony of rabbits would join them.
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A troubling of goldfish
How to remember: Upon learning his species had an average attention span of eight seconds, the troubled goldfish returned to his troubling of goldfish, only to forget what he was troubled about.
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A journey of giraffes
How to remember: If giraffes are journeying across the land together, they are called a journey of giraffes. Once they reach their destination and stand still, observing the surroundings they tower over, they become a tower of giraffes.
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A cackle of hyenas
How to remember: A cackle of hyenas will always cackle until a lion approaches—especially if that lion is named Scar or Mufasa.
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A walk of snails
How to remember: No matter how slow you walk, you will always walk faster than a walk of snails.
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A rhumba of rattlesnakes
How to remember: Once Rue tuned the radio to rumba, the whole rhumba of rattlesnakes started dancing the rumba with a Roomba.
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A stubbornness (or crash) of rhinoceroses
How to remember: The stubborn stubbornness of rhinos wouldn’t move out of the way, so it crashed into another crash of equally stubborn rhinos.
Why trust us
Reader’s Digest has been telling jokes for more than 100 years, curated and reviewed over the last 20 years by Senior Features Editor Andy Simmons, a humor editor formerly of National Lampoon and the author of Now That’s Funny. We’ve earned prestigious ASME awards for our humor—including comical quips, pranks, puns, cartoons, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, memes, tweets and stories in laugh-out-loud magazine columns such as “Life in These United States,” “All in a Day’s Work,” “Laughter, the Best Medicine” and “Humor in Uniform,” as well as online collections such as short jokes, dad jokes and bad jokes so bad, they’re great. You can find a century of humor in our 2022 compendium, Reader’s Digest: Laughter, the Best Medicine. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- How Stuff Works: “A Shrewdness of Apes? Collective Nouns Are a 500-Year-Old Language Fad”
- American Kennel Club: “Pug Facts You May Not Know”
- International Fund for Animal Welfare: “Giant Pandas – FAQs”
- BBC: “Why a group of hippos is called a bloat”
- Critter Stop: “What Do You Call a Group of Mice?”
- City of Albuquerque – ABQ BioPark: “10 Cool Facts About Penguins”
- Ernest: “A Compendium of Collective Nouns”
- U.S. Department of the Interior: “12 Facts About Otters for Sea Otter Awareness Week”
- Good Living: “10 things you might not know about wombats”
- Arctic WWF: “Polar Bear”
- Duke Today: “Who Run the World? Squirrels”
- The New Yorker: “Weekend Reading: A Rhumba of Rattlesnakes, a Shakespeare Originalist”
