Lizards tend to be territorial and use sit-and-wait hunting strategies. Perhaps, Berners observed some lizards lounging in the sun when she coined this one. The adjective flamboyance means “strikingly bold or showy,” and for these social birds that range in color from light pink to bright red, we think it’s properly descriptive. It also seems that Berners had a penchant for poetry and liked alliteration, based on this one. A flamboyance of flamingosĪ flamboyance of flamingos is a colorful and appropriate name for what scientists call a flock of the pink birds. ![]() ![]() Berners, who had an intimate knowledge of wildlife, may not have intended these names to be taken seriously, but they were repeated through the ages and are now commonly used. The book is attributed to Juliana Berners who gave animal groups imaginative yet oddly appropriate names. Many of the group names can be traced back to The Book of Saint Albans, published in 1486, about angling, hawking, and hunting. And, many of these animal groups have colorful, fanciful names: a murder of crows, a covey of partridges, a clowder of cats. ![]() Strangely, terms of venery is a collective noun that means a group of animals. What do hunting and sexual desires have in common? We could point to several things, but from a linguistic point of view, we’re referring to the archaic word venery, which means both hunting (from the Latin venor) and sexual desire (from Latin veneria, referring to Venus).
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