What Animals Form a Cloud?
A drifting, shifting mass in the air — the same word used for weather, borrowed for bugs.
Which Animals Form a Cloud?
“Cloud” shows up as a collective noun for several small, swarming insects, most consistently gnats, along with mosquitoes and locusts. What ties them together isn’t biology so much as visual effect: each can gather in dense, shifting masses that hang or drift through the air the way a cloud does. For gnats it’s close to the default term; for mosquitoes and locusts, it’s a real but secondary description, sitting alongside more specific words tied to their reputations. Grasshoppers are actually the cleanest fit of all — unlike the other three, “cloud” is their genuine primary collective noun.
Where Does “Cloud” Come From?
“Cloud” has nothing to do with insects at its root. It comes from Old English clud, meaning a mass of rock or a hill. Around 1300, English speakers began using the same word for a mass of vapor in the sky, likely because piled-up cumulus clouds visually resembled a rocky outcrop. That metaphorical leap is the whole story of the word “cloud” as we use it today — there was never a separate, specialized term invented for insect swarms. Calling a mass of gnats or locusts a “cloud” is simply the same visual metaphor applied a second time, insects standing in for vapor the way vapor once stood in for rock.
Cloud (Insects) vs. Cloud (the Sky)
Unlike some collective nouns that turn out to be unrelated words wearing the same spelling by coincidence, “cloud of gnats” and “cloud in the sky” are the exact same word, used the exact same way: both describe a visible, suspended mass with an indistinct, shifting shape. There’s no hidden second etymology here, no old dialect word waiting to be uncovered. It’s a plain, ordinary English word doing double duty because a swarm of tiny flying insects and a mass of water vapor really do look alike from a distance.
Animal-by-Animal Breakdown
Gnats: Most commonly called a cloud, making them the clearest fit for this term of the three. Gnats are small enough and numerous enough that a swarm genuinely does read as a hovering, shapeless mass rather than as individual insects.
Mosquitoes: Most commonly called a scourge, a reputation-driven term reflecting mosquito-borne disease, with swarm as a general alternate. “Cloud” is a real, plain-language way people describe a thick mass of biting mosquitoes at dusk, but it isn’t the documented primary collective term for them.
Locusts: Most commonly called a plague, a term with obvious biblical and historical weight given locusts’ history of devastating crops. “Cloud” and “swarm” are both well-known secondary terms, often used to describe the visual experience of a locust swarm passing overhead.
Grasshoppers: Most often called a cloud, the term’s genuine primary usage — describing exactly how large numbers look when they lift off together in flight. Cluster and swarm are common alternates.
🧠 Test Your Knowledge
Three quick questions. See what stuck.1. Which insect’s primary collective noun is actually “scourge,” not “cloud”?
2. What did “cloud” originally mean in Old English?
3. What is the most historically documented collective noun for locusts?
Frequently Asked Questions
What animals form a cloud?
Gnats, mosquitoes, and locusts are all described with the collective noun cloud, referring to the dense, drifting mass they form in flight, though it’s the default term mainly for gnats.
Is “cloud” the official collective noun for these insects?
Not exactly. It’s a widely used descriptive term, but each insect also has its own more specific collective noun: scourge for mosquitoes and plague for locusts, for example.
Does “cloud” have anything to do with the weather word?
Yes, it’s the same word. “Cloud” originally meant a mass of rock in Old English, was applied to vapor in the sky by around 1300, and was later extended again, metaphorically, to describe swarms of insects.
What’s the difference between a “cloud” and a “swarm”?
“Swarm” describes behavior, a large group moving or acting together. “Cloud” is more visual, describing the shape and density of the group as it appears from a distance.
Can “cloud” describe birds or bats too?
Informally, yes, people sometimes describe a dense flock or bat colony emerging from a roost as looking like a cloud, but the documented collective nouns for those groups are usually different, like murmuration for starlings.