Originally Posted by
Shutree
This sounds like something that is so because the Internet says it is so. There is a long history of inventing collective nouns for animals in English. I can imagine a couple of undergraduates with beer and nothing better to do looking for animals without a collective noun then choosing some random noun and posting it about the place to fill a vacuum.
Since pandas are mostly solitary, there isn't much need for a collective noun. Except maybe for a pub quiz. The most I have ever seen in one place was six, in Shanghai zoo. Not all in one pen.
Interestingly, if you are interested in such things, Chinese doesn't really go in for collective nouns in the whimsical way that English does. So far as I know, a group of pandas would be called 群 (qun2), a generic word for a group, which can be used for dogs, cows and just about anything. As with so many things, I could be entirely wrong and would be happy to be better informed.