What Do You Call A Group Of Turkeys? How ’bout Baboons?

The English language has some wonderful collective nouns for various groups of animals. You’ve probably heard of a Herd of Cows, a Flock of Chickens, a School of Fish, a Gaggle of Geese, and a Pride of Lions. You might have even heard of a Murder of Crows, an Exaltation of Doves and, a Parliament of Owls. But did you know that a group of flamingos is called a stand prior to seeing that image above?

And how about the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?

Believe it or not . . . it’s not a Congress, though a Congress of Baboons is kind of fitting, right?! We’ve seen that on social media and elsewhere online, too. But a group of baboons is actually called a TROOP.

a Troop of Baboons

We find the various animal group names to be quite entertaining and we couldn’t help but wonder how these names evolved. We did quite a bit of research trying to find a definitive source as to the authority on the “right” collective noun for the various animal groups, but there doesn’t seem to be a single authority on the subject, per se.

To complicate matters, it turns out there are some variations and nuances that aren’t always spelled out or even agreed upon. For example, it seems that a group of turkeys is called a rafter. However, there’s evidently a distinction between domestic and wild turkeys when it comes to knowing what to call them as a group. A group of domestic turkeys is called a rafter . . .

a Rafter of Turkeys

while a group of wild turkeys is referred to as a flock.

a Flock of Turkeys

Still, it’s fun to see what you can find by looking and it’s interesting to note that many of the names for groups of animals are descriptive of the animals themselves:

a Gaggle of Geese

a Crash of Rhinoceroses

a Prickle of Porcupines

The List

Here is our running list of various names for various groups of animals.
We’ll keep updating as we learn more.