After watching the improbable win by the Seattle Seahawks (National Football League team) last night, I was curious about the origins of some team names based on animal species. The Seahawks are named for the Osprey, although their logo isn’t quite an Osprey and their mascot is an African Augur Buz…

When the NFL Cardinals moved to Phoenix, I wonder if anyone checked to make sure there were Northern Cardinals in Arizona (there are). Otherwise maybe they should’ve been the Arizona Pyrrhuloxias.

We have Springboks and Proteas.

Savannah Bananas. Also, when Art Modell sold Cleveland up the river and moved the Browns to Baltimore, the team was renamed the Ravens. Ps go birds

[image] jnstuart: Any other interesting stories for teams named after animals? James, Thanks for starting this thread. There are scores of interesting origin stories around the world for teams named after animals!

Don’t forget about plants! Stanford’s logo/mascot (but not name) is a redwood tree , and Ohio State University’s team is named after the buckeye tree (their mascot is a buckeye nut ). And obviously the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team.

Good point. And Diana mentioned the Proteas … a team within a sport named for an animal (cricket). ;-)

The Richmond Flying Squirrels are a minor league baseball team.

Amarillo, Texas has a minor league team called the Sod Poodles. Allegedly a local nickname for Black-tailed Prairie Dog. I don’t think we need to add that name to the species’ common names list.

Genus, not species, but I think the University of California at Santa Cruz Banana Slugs is a fun name.

Poisonous nuts! There’s also the Oregon Ducks, Texas Longhorns, and I’m blanking on which team has the Razorbacks. Lots of USA college teams have an animal of some kind. Georgia Tech are the yellow jackets.

Sports teams named for species

Nature Talk

asteroidowl December 20, 2025, 7:05pm 18

Fighting Blueberries is awesome.

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Sports teams named for species

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