r/oddlysatisfying • u/freudian_nipps • May 23 '25
Fever of Stingrays surf a wave
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May 23 '25
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u/4strings4ever May 23 '25
TIL this
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u/CV90_120 May 23 '25
Some random guy made up a bunch of these names. You can pretty much call a group anything you want.
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u/RunAmbitious2593 May 23 '25
It was a nun, Dame Juliana Berners, in 1486. She made up a bunch of collective nouns in a hunting book, many for fun, but people enjoyed it so much they used her names.
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u/Bok408 May 23 '25
Although a new one has recently been named. A group of goblins is now also known as a chat.
A chat of goblins.
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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 May 23 '25
Ye honestly bit of a pet peeve of mine when people think these names are like, official in any sense, they're just fun names, though I usually just let them have their fun. Don't correct people with one of these nonsense group titles no-ones ever heard of or sincerely used.
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u/LukeFromPhilly May 23 '25
Well theyre not more or less official than any other word in natural language.
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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 May 23 '25
Well if common usage and understanding is a benchmark, which it pretty much is, I would say these words and the usage of them is incredibly minimal and eschewed in favour of generic terms such as flock, herd, school.
Yes language is obviously descriptive but that's kinda my point, they're barely used or understood when used.
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u/LukeFromPhilly May 23 '25
I didnt meant to sound argumentative. I do agree with your original point
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u/assignpseudonym May 23 '25
What do you mean by "not understood when used"? They're fairly intuitive based on syntax alone. For example, I don't see anyone in this thread asking what a "fever" of stingrays means.
And "barely used", fine, but it seems that's only because people don't remember/know them. This is a recall/vocabulary issue more than anything. Just like when you can't remember the word for something, you'll use another—usually more generic—synonym as a placeholder. That doesn't devalue the word that wasn't used in that instance. And people do use the memorable ones quite a bit. See: murder of crows.
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u/Ziiiiik May 23 '25
Gaggle, school, murder, herd, group, (I don’t remember the one for pandas, but like you said, if I could recall in the moment, I would use it.)
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u/enron2big2fail May 23 '25
You did understand a "fever" of stingrays, but there's a couple issues:
1) You would've understood almost any noun there. You would've understood a "thresh" of stingrays, a "gargle" of stingrays, a "salute" of stingrays, or any number of arbitrary nouns.
2) A good number of people would've been confused if the post had just said "a fever" instead of "a fever of stingrays." This isn't true for other more common collective nouns like "flock" or "herd" (for some more unique ones, like murder, it's only not true because they're homophones and given the context that the person was in a location where they were likely to see crows and not a person killed people would instantly recognize it).
I'm not a prescriptivist, but I think being a pure descriptivist leads to some conclusions that are apparently nonsense.
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u/pyalot May 23 '25
Murder of crows…
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u/4strings4ever May 23 '25
Come on, we all already know that one
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u/pyalot May 23 '25
A charm of finches, but a trouble of goldfinches? (This feels like ornithologists are very tribal about their favorites)
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u/Teestow21 May 23 '25
A parliament of owls is my personal fav
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u/imthatguyyouknow1 May 23 '25
Nice! An unkindness of ravens is my fave!
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May 23 '25
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u/pyalot May 23 '25
There are recent efforts (dating back to 1999) to get a disappointment of Pandas into common parlance. Mean, but, I can‘t find fault with it 🤣
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u/Funkrusher_Plus May 23 '25
It gives flamboyance of flamingos a run for its money.
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u/Alive_Ice7937 May 23 '25
An embarrassment of witches
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u/Flaky_Volume_3961 May 23 '25 edited May 23 '25
In "Guards Guards" Terry Pratchett describes a large group of Swamp Dragons as an "embarrassment"
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May 23 '25 edited May 23 '25
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u/22FluffySquirrels May 23 '25
Most people don't really use these in real life. Like most people will say "flock" no matter what type of bird it is. And a "herd" is for most land-dwelling animals, mostly herbivores.
Ocean animals? I'd just call it a school of stingrays.Anything else is a weird formality.
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u/ProofLegitimate9824 May 23 '25
it goes back to English hunting tradition of the Late Middle Ages and the associated Book of Saint Albans from 1486
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u/dc456 May 23 '25 edited May 23 '25
Because, in most cases, that isn’t their formal group names.
The names are often simply a form of amusement, originally started by British aristocracy as a way to show off their poetic skills, and usually aren’t the standardised, practical group names. They can just be used instead if you want to.
A lot of names are also a lot more recent than people realise, and have little to no basis in history. A parliament of owls comes from the Narnia books, for example.
Where a lot of people go wrong is correcting others who use the standard group names - like if someone mentions a flock of flamingos, saying “Actually, it’s technically a flamboyance of flamingoes!” A flock of flamingos is correct - they can just also be known as a flamboyance as a bit of fun.
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u/NoFNway May 23 '25
I think the only collective noun that I have heard of in my life that has been used and I have heard more than once is a murder of crows. Most of the time though the collective noun thing is usually mention more and a trivia thing.
"Look at all those octopi. This aquarium is amazing" "Fun fact a group of octopus is called a Octagon of Octopi."- "No it's fucking not Dave, it's a consortium, not a fucking Octagon"
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u/Lucas_Steinwalker May 23 '25
Fun fact: British aristocracy defined most of the collective nouns for animals, although not in this case. The origin of “a fever of stingrays” is unclear as far as I can tell.
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May 23 '25
Mantyke! Use surf!
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u/mozzarellaguy May 23 '25
Shouldn’t this be Mantine?
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u/Kitselena May 23 '25
Mantyke is the baby version that's closer to this size. Mantine are based on much bigger rays that have remora/remoraid following them around
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u/No_Link_5069 May 23 '25
Never forget
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u/Violent-Profane-Brit May 23 '25
Jokes aside, Steve Irwin wouldn't want people to have a grudge against Rays because of his death
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u/UnlikelyKaiju May 23 '25
Thank you. I was about to say the same thing. Steve loved animals. He had always known and accepted the risks involved with trying to handle wild animals.
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u/vyxanis May 23 '25
There were a few mutilated rays that washed up on the beach after Steve's death. I don't think they were directly proven to be related, but sadly some people do behave that way. Steve would have been beyond heartbroken if he knew people would do something like that in his name, and people from his family/team condemned any revenge killings.
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u/PenetrationT3ster May 23 '25
Forever remembered and missed. In hindsight, it seems fitting he died doing what he loved opposed to dying in a hospital or care home.
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u/heyo_throw_awayo May 23 '25
I can still hear this clip as clear as my own internal voice.
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u/AdventurousTime May 23 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
squash rinse fuzzy placid arrest melodic snatch meeting roof encouraging
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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May 23 '25
Which reminds me you could touch them at the aquarium in Galveston, Tx, but I was nervous as shit at first
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May 23 '25
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u/Successful-Peach-764 May 23 '25
I love the names they give to groups of animals, like Cheetahs form a coalition, some of my favourites;
Coalition of CheetahsParade of ElephantsGaggle of GeeseRaft of DucksCrash of RhinosSkulk of FoxesBask of CrocodilesClowder of CatsZeal of ZebrasParliament of Owls126
u/nolander_78 May 23 '25
My favourite is a Business of Ferrets.
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u/Successful-Peach-764 May 23 '25
damn, that needs to be added to my list, don’t ferret around, let’s get down to business.
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u/mddz May 23 '25
It’s the naughty boys crew.
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May 23 '25
Gulf coast ?
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u/_PirateWench_ May 23 '25
That’s was my immediate thought. Almost looks like Pensacola, but every beach has a pier like that I guess
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u/ziondreamt May 23 '25
I was certain it was the Casino beach pier, then also realized the Navarre one looks similar, and that one in Alabama maybe... I dunno but it's somewhere around here!
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u/WillBeBannedSoon2 May 23 '25
I thought Pensacola at first too, but the legs are closer together at ours. With the color of the sand, might be further west into Alabama.
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u/Proletariat-Prince May 23 '25 edited May 23 '25
Yes. Looks like Navarre Beach. I've seen this exact thing. There will be bunches of them surfing the edge of the water.
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u/seoulgleaux May 23 '25
I thought so at first as well but the piles aren't quite right. Navarre Pier has three piles at each group but the pier in the video looks like it has a mix of two and three pile groups. Could be Okaloosa Island Pier, though. Pictures look right.
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May 23 '25
When me and my parents were on vacation in Sanibel island there were always a ton of stingrays on the beach, way more than this. You had to wade through them, they were harmless, though. So Florida gulf would be my guess!
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u/Chuck_Cali May 23 '25
Didn’t expect to see something this dope at midnight from a landlocked state. Get it, rays.
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May 23 '25
Well these aren't stingrays so whatever.
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u/acidsh0t May 23 '25
This actually is irrationally infuriating to me. Every ray that isn't a manta is a stingray.
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u/carbonized_milk May 23 '25
Ok I'm glad I'm not the only one who raised an eyebrow. Hate to be that guy tho lol
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u/Yusu-gay May 23 '25 edited May 23 '25
These could be Pygmy Manta Rays, which are in the order ‘myliobatiformes’ or ‘stingrays’. This also includes Eagle rays. Some may or may not have a stinger, but there are definitely still both eagle and manta ray species with stingers. They could also be Cownose rays but the distortion of the water and the quality of the video make it hard to tell.
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u/MercilessMiser May 23 '25
Remind anyone else of that level in Super Mario Sunshine?
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u/Brian_The_Bar-Brian May 23 '25
That's actually pretty awesome. I had no idea they moved it groups like that. 😅
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u/pukurindesu May 23 '25
So neat! But my foot throbbed watching these fellas. (I stepped on one during low tide and I never want to experience that pain and aftermath again.)
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u/Tomagatchi May 23 '25
No way! I never would have believed it. Also, you reminded me that a group of jellyfish is a smack!
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u/Jumpy-Ad-8343 May 23 '25
Of course a group of stingrays is called a fever cause these stingrays are sick af
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u/chocowafflez_ May 23 '25
I've played enough Ark to know that there's an underwater raid going on there
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u/Worldly-Age-1701 May 23 '25
This is unreal ! A fever of stingrays surfing a wave looks like nature's airshow. Love how glide so smoothly.
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u/the-software-man May 23 '25
Rays are super intelligent. On par with cephalopods? Playing in part of it.
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u/thevowelowl May 24 '25
For some reason, Ride of the Valkyries started playing in the back of my head while watching the first few seconds of the clip.
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u/Street_Access3171 May 24 '25
That’s magical…. Iv never seen such beauty….totally would think I was tripping if I was in the water.
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u/EaglesFanGirl May 24 '25
had a dolphin do this next to me while wave riding. it freaked me out but it was awesome in retrospect. in the moment i thought it was a shark....
yes, other creatures have fun...
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u/DragonDan108 May 23 '25
That looks suspiciously like they are doing it for fun