Fun Trivia » Animals » Miscellaneous Animal Trivia » Baby Animal Names

Reindeer in North America are known as caribou, a term which entered English from the French Canadian approximation of an Algonquin word meaning "snow shoveler." Because they are members of the deer family (Cervidae), their young are sometimes described by the term for a deer's calf: fawn. Difficulty: Hard.

 

foal, rudy, kid

Skunks are not aggressive animals. They have sharp teeth, but rarely use them. Spraying the smelly chemical is a better defense mechanism for them. They usually will give a warning before using the spray. Difficulty: Hard.

 

stinky, puppy, Pepe

While a newborn domestic chicken may be called a chick, as a female chick grows it becomes a pullet until it reaches one year of age or begins to lay eggs. The term pullet comes from the Old French "polet" which is a diminutive of "poule" meaning "hen." Difficulty: Easy.

 

a baby alligator, a newborn boar (wild pig), an infant oyster

Eggs laid by such creatures as toads and frogs are called spawn while fry is a general name used for a young fish. Softshell or soft-shell refers to a type of turtle or a newly-moulted crab.

After it is fertilised, usually in the water surrounding the oyster bed, an oyster's egg develops into a free-swimming larva or veliger which eventually grows a protruding 'foot' gland, when it becomes known as a pediveliger. The pediveliger then settles against a solid object, often another oyster's shell, and the gland secretes an adhesive substance that permanently attaches the larva to it. The young oyster is then known as a spat and matures into an adult oyster over the next year. At first the adult is male but becomes female during the next two to three years and may change sex several times more during its lifespan. Difficulty: Hard.

 

Spawn, Softshell, Fry

Manatees are one of my favorite aquatic animals. I once snorkeled with them at Crystal River in Florida. They are gentle, slow moving, and non-aggressive. They are related to elephants. Difficulty: Hard.

 

kid, fluke, kitten

Peafowl are natives of India and Southeast Asia. Of the genus Pavo, they are related to pheasants, quails and partridges. To suggest that something is like a peacock, one calls it pavonine, e.g. "The Empress appeared in a pavonine gown which left no colour unexpressed."
Difficulty: Hard.

 

a pullet, a fledgling, a cosset

The young of an owl is called an "Owlet". Many owls make a "parliament". Difficulty: Easy.

 

Ferret, Skunk, Fox

Female alligators lay their eggs in a big pile of decaying vegetation. When baby alligators are hatched, they call to their mother with high pitched sounds. The female is very protective of her babies. Difficulty: Easy.

 

pelt, pup, hatchee

The Old English name for newts was "efte" from which the modern name for the young of newts derives. Efts tend to be terrestrial whereas fully mature newts are either aquatic or semi-aquatic. Their use in witches' brew is relatively unexplored.
Difficulty: Hard.

 

tadpoles, hatchlings, wormlets

A cheeper is the young of a grouse/partridge/quail. A squab is the young of a pigeon. A cygnet is the young of a swan.

When was the last time you saw a squab? Difficulty: Hard.

 

Cheeper, Squab, Cygnet

Wombats are related to koalas, and their babies are also called joeys. Wombats live in Australia. Difficulty: Average.

 

eddie, jed, johnny

The modern terms for geese descend directly from the Germanic beginnings of Old English. The OE singular was gōs, the plural was gēs, and the masculine gandres. Gosling is diminutive of the OE gōs. Young birds are considered goslings until they fly. A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle.
Difficulty: Very Easy.

 

a flapper, a cygnet, a keet

Grice is the name of an extinct breed of pig while squeaker and tumbler can be used to describe a young pigeon and a young mosquito respectively. Like the young of other game birds such as ptarmigans, young grouse are called poults and a group of grouse is known as a covey.

Different species of grouse are distributed across the northern hemisphere and live in moorland, forests and hills. Mostly about the size of a large chicken, they nest on the ground where the hen normally lays from six to fifteen eggs in a clutch. The young birds leave the nest very soon after hatching and at first feed mainly on insects and other small invertebrates. As they mature though, the poults gradually adopt the adult diet of vegetation such as seeds and leaves. Difficulty: Hard.

 

Grice, Squeaker, Tumbler

The young of a zebra is also sometimes known as a calf.
Every zebra has a unique pattern of stripes. Although a zebra's stripes make it one of the world's most recognisable animals, the stripes actually help to camouflage the zebra by breaking up its appearance. Difficulty: Easy.

 

Pup, Runt, Kit

Wasps, unlike bees, are considered a nuisance in the garden. Be very careful when removing their nests since they are very protective of their colony. Only female wasps can sting. The sting is very painful, and in some cases, life threatening. A drone is a male wasp and a queen is the head-female wasp. Many of the worker wasps in a colony are sterile females, the fertile female being a queen. Difficulty: Hard.

 

queen, female, drone

The curious name "aardvark" derives from the Afrikaans, which seems appropriate to an animal found only in Africa. The name means something like "earth pig" in reference to aardvarks' great skills as burrowers. Single cubs are born who quickly mature to leave the burrow in search of ants and termites, their primary diet once weaned from their mother's milk. Difficulty: Hard.

 

kindje, joey, farrow

Although a potto is a type of lemur, both pup and infant are names used for a number of different young animals. Moles and hamsters, for example, give birth to young known as pups, while monkeys and gorillas (as well as humans) produce offspring called infants. Cows, elephants and giraffes are some of the other animals that, like the hippopotamus, give birth to babies known as calves.

The group name for hippopotami (or hippopotamuses) is a herd or a bloat, and it can consist of from five to about thirty animals. There are two species of hippopotami/amuses - the common and the pygmy. The common hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal after the elephant and the white rhinoceros by weight and, at about the same average size as this rhinoceros, the joint second largest by size after the elephant. Hippopotami/amuses are most closely related to whales and often give birth under water so that, sometimes with its mother's assistance, the newborn calf must swim to the surface to take its first breath. Difficulty: Average.

 

Pup, Potto, Infant

There are nearly 100 species of lemurs in Madagascar. They range in size from mouse lemurs which weigh only an ounce up to the recently-extinct giant lemurs which weighed as much as a gorilla. The name "lemur" derives from an Old Latin word meaning "ghost" or "spirit." There appears to be no English word for their offspring other than baby or infant.
Difficulty: Hard.

 

pup, kitten, cub

The young of a beaver and the young of a squirrel can also be called a "kit" or a "pup".
An "infant" can refer to the young of a baboon.
A "bitten" can refer to the young of a bat.
A "nymph" can refer to the young of a cockroach. Difficulty: Hard.

 

Infant, Bitten, Nymph

It's hard to think of some of these animals as babies. A nymph is a baby cockroach (also some other insects are called nymphs) and an ephyna is a baby jellyfish. Difficulty: Hard.

 

Tadpole, Nymph, Ephyna

The word "stot" derives from the Old English where it meant to jump or leap or bound in the manner characteristic of gazelles and antelopes (called pronking or pronging). How it came to refer to a young ox is something of an etymological mystery, although young oxen are known to run with a springing gait when playing.
Difficulty: Hard.

 

foal, fawn, whelp

The young of most, if not all, birds can be called chicks but, like a baby partridge, a young wild duck can also be known as a flapper. Once they have grown out of their chick stage, young domestic chickens are known as pullets or cockerels (depending on their sex) before becoming hens or cocks/roosters. There are a number of collective names for a group of wild ducks including a raft and a paddling.

The three main types of wild ducks are diving ducks (such as pochards), sea ducks (such as scoters), and dabbling ducks (such as gadwalls). Wild ducks generally lay somewhere between eight and fifteen eggs in a clutch, with the exact number varying between species. Almost as soon as they have hatched, the mother leads her young to the nearest water and specifically to the feeding areas there, and the baby ducks are able to forage for themselves. Difficulty: Hard.

 

Arctic tern, Parrot, Chicken

Frogs are known for their ability to drink and breathe through their skin. Difficulty: Hard.

 

Polliwogs, Tadpoles, Froglets

Baby hares are called leverets until they are a year old. There are many differences between leverets and bunnies. Hares are born with fur and with open eyes; bunnies are born hairless and with their eyes closed. Hares are ready to forage shortly after birth; bunnies remain in a burrow with their mother.
Difficulty: Hard.

 

a bunny, a kit, a nestling

Zebras, as well as horses and donkeys, give birth to foals whereas young frogs are known as tadpoles, polliwogs or froglets. Baby ferrets are known as kits, sharing the term with young badgers and polecats, among others. Like a baby coyote, a young otter is called a whelp and it may also be known as a pup or cub.

A group of otters, of which there are thirteen species, is known as a raft or romp, among other terms. As its name suggests, the sea otter lives mainly in water whereas the other species spend most of their time on land. Otters live in holts, where the female generally gives birth to an average of two to three young. The whelps only begin swimming at about two to three months old and stay with their mother for about a year. Difficulty: Hard.

 

Zebras, Frogs, Ferrets

An "elver" is the young of an eel.
A "wriggler" is the young of a mosquito.
An "allgit" doesn't exist. Difficulty: Average.

 

Allgit, Elver, Wriggler

Donkeys are related to horses but their ears are much longer. You can put a saddle and harness on a donkey as you would a horse and ride it. A male donkey is called a jack or jackass, and a baby is a colt or a foal. Difficulty: Easy.

 

Paula, Lucille, Kate

The echidna is one of only two oviparous mammals; the other one is the platypus. The echidna lays a single egg in the mother's pouch. The baby hatches after ten days and gets milk from a gland in the pouch. Within a few weeks the baby grows sharp spines and must leave the pouch. Difficulty: Hard.

 

Codfish, Turtle, Pig

A male seahorse is called a seastallion; a female seahorse is called a seamare. One species (H. fuscus) is called the "sea pony." Seahorses belong to a genus called Hippocampus. The term Hippocampus is produced by joining two Ancient Greek words: one meaning horse and the other meaning a sea monster.
Difficulty: Hard.

 

pup, nymph, hatchling

A baby rat can also be called a "Kitten" and "Pup". Difficulty: Hard.

 

Kitten and Peachick, Pinkie and Squab, Kit and Chick

Female scorpions carry the babies on their backs. They will leave her back when they are old enough to care for themselves. This is usually after a couple of weeks.
Difficulty: Hard.

 

nurse them, leave them, eat them

It originally meant "a very young bird". Difficulty: Hard.

 

Squid, Clam, Otter

Not only alpaca offspring are called crias; other camelid species such as the llama and the vicuña use the same term. The Spanish influence in South America is reflected in this name for camelid babies; cría is the Spanish word for baby.

Difficulty: Hard.

 

kid, lamb, calf

Collectively, a group of meerkats may be called a mob, a gang or a clan. They live in southern Africa and in many zoos. And, with their black-ringed eyes, standing tall on their hind feet, they are totally cute!

Difficulty: Hard.

 

kits, cubs, piglets

The subspecies American plains bison has an interesting scientific name: Bison bison bison.
Difficulty: Average.

 

colt, shoat, oxlet

The entire shrew race is slandered by William Shakespeare's portrayal of Katherina Minola in "The Taming of the Shrew." Very few mammals are venomous but several shrew species are. Perhaps the Bard may be forgiven.
Difficulty: Hard.

 

nestlings, pups, pinkies

Perhaps because chimpanzees share so much in common with another primate -- the human being -- the proper terms for the offspring of both is the same: infant and, sometimes, baby. Juvenile chimps remain infants for about five years. The word "chimpanzee" was adapted in the early 18th Century from a Bantu language, Tshiluba, spoken in Angola. Difficulty: Average.

 

cub, pup, whelp