When I first stumbled across an alphabetical list of group names (also known as collective nouns) on wiktionary, I found the term “an ambush of tigers” so exciting that I just had to draw it. By the time I had done “a clowder of cats”, I knew I was hooked.

At turns whimsical and at others poetic, the names for groups of animals tell us a lot not only about how we personify animals and birds, but also about the way language evolves over time.