Drag the labels into place and when you are ready, use 'Mark' to see if you're correct.

• Which animals have a clue in their behaviour to help you?
• How many more collective nouns for animals can you think of?

Pair this with ‘Common animal groupings’ to look at more generic groupings or look at the behaviour and characteristics of animals using ‘Animal adjectives’ or ‘Animal behaviour vocabulary’.

There are many terms that people use for groups of different animals and many of these are quite obscure. There is often no consensus as to what the 'correct' term is with some words varying by time and place.

Some words are dependent on the behaviour of the animal, e.g. a 'murmuration' of starlings refers to them in unified flight and not while they are roosting; a 'gaggle' of geese refers to geese on the ground and not in the air. Other words are limited to a life stage, e.g. a 'clutch' of chicks and not adult birds. Other words are indicative of the number of animals in the group, e.g. a 'pod' of seals would be a small group, whereas a 'colony' would be a very large gathering.

These words are often descriptive of the action of the animals when they gather and show human ideas, e.g. an army of ants. Many show human prejudice, e.g. a 'murder' of crows or a 'nuisance' of cats.

Be aware that some terms you come across may be used of animals which are generally solitary, so any collective noun can only be applied to a family group raising young.