18th July – I believe in unicorns, just not pangolins…

Photo of the Day

Go read Chad's latest blogs about collective nouns and mythical creatures like aardvarks and pangolins

Blog Introduction

I have a thing for trying to learn the collective nouns of animals (trying being the operative word), as some of them are just utterly ridiculous, and clearly concocted by English gentlemen with far too much time on their hands…or is it whiskey in their hands, I forget?

Still, seeing as we see them so infrequently in our area, collective nouns act as a good diversion when I realise that I actually don’t have anything to say about wildebeest! But did you know, wildebeests are collectively known as an implausibility of wildebeest? This should not be confused with an obstinacy of buffalo, a parade of elephants, a journey of giraffes, or a business of mongooses (and yes, it is mongooses and not mongeese or mongii)!

There are more common ones that many regulars to the bush like to brandish about, like a leap of leopards, a dazzle of zebras or a crash of rhinos, and occasionally, I have even heard people talking of a blessing of unicorns; but this is absolute hogwash, as everyone knows unicorns are strictly solitary creatures, and I have never seen more than one at a time. In fact, one can find collective nouns for just about any animal around, except for one…the pangolin.

Go and read the rest of Chad’s entertaining blog post for Africa Geographic by clicking here!