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In the English language, many animals have different names depending on whether they are male, female, young, domesticated, or in groups. The best-known source of many English words used for collective groupings of animals is The Book of Saint Albans , an essay on hunting published in 1486 and attributed to Juliana Berners . [ 1 ]
For example, the collective noun "group" can be applied to people ("a group of people"), or dogs ("a group of dogs"), or objects ("a group of stones"). Some collective nouns are specific to one kind of thing, especially terms of venery, which identify groups of specific animals. For example, "pride" as a term of venery always refers to lions ...
This list draws examples from three broad groups of animals: tetrapods (with 0 to 2 leg pairs, [7] [8] providing three examples), velvet worms (with 13 to 43 leg pairs, [9] providing ten examples), and arthropods (with 3 to 653 leg pairs, [10] [1] providing all the other examples).
The word cow came via Anglo-Saxon cū (plural cȳ), from Common Indo-European gʷōus (genitive gʷowés) 'a bovine animal', cf. Persian: gâv, Sanskrit: go-, Welsh: buwch. [18] The plural cȳ became ki or kie in Middle English, and an additional plural ending was often added, giving kine, kien, but also kies, kuin and others.
It corresponds to the noun-adjective form many vernacular names take to indicate a species within a group (for example, 'brown bear' to refer to a particular type of bear), [6] as well as the widespread system of family name plus given name(s) used to name people in many cultures. [12] Widespread use.
However, its meaning is the reverse of the Breton construction. Rather than multiple sets of two each, it indicates two sets of multiple each. Thus there is rumḥun, spear (singular); rumḥani, two spears (dual); rimāḥun, spears (plural); and rimāḥāni, two groups of spears (dual of the plural).
Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million in total. Animals range in size from 8.5 millionths of a metre to 33.6 metres (110 ft) long and have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs .
List of animals that can change color; List of cosmopterigid genera; List of crocodilians; List of animals culled in zoos; D. List of deadliest animals to humans ...