“Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day
You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play.”

If you recognised the lyrics by Guns N’ Roses, you’ll know that the jungle they sing about is not the green, tropical kind, but the human kind – one where the rule is every man for himself.

Now that many of the inhabitants of our concrete jungle – and by extension, our corporate jungle - have temporarily escaped from the city into nature, perhaps this change of scenery gives us an opportunity to look at it from a different perspective – and English gives us a way to do just that.

The English language likes to view the business world through the prism of the animal kingdom, describing the corporate jungle as a dog-eat-dog world – a ruthless world in which everyone looks out for themselves – or as a rat race – a relentless race for money and status. In the “real” jungle, meanwhile, a different rule applies: survival of the fittest.

In “our jungle”, animals become metaphors for business players – from those at the top to outsiders, easy targets and winners lurking in the shadows.

Do you know who’s who in the corporate jungle – in English?

Who is at the top? TOP DOG
Who is the outsider with the least chance of success? UNDERDOG
Who is an aggressive and ruthless business player? SHARK
Who is an easy and unprotected target? SITTING DUCK
Who is a hardworking and industrious employee? BUSY BEE
Who is eager to prove themselves at work? EAGER BEAVER
Who has lost power or influence because their term of office is coming to an end? LAME DUCK
Who is different from everyone else, in a negative sense? BLACK SHEEP
Who is an under-the-radar candidate who could surprise everyone and win? DARK HORSE
Who is a major player, particularly in financial markets? WHALE
Who looks powerful and dangerous but is only so “on paper”? PAPER TIGER

But in the “business jungle” animals are not used only to describe people. They also describe companies, projects and investments. The unicorn also roams this jungle - a mythical, elusive creature symbolising rare, almost unreal business success – a startup whose valuation has exceeded one billion dollars. Then there is the cash cow – a company, project or product that generates money regularly and reliably without requiring major additional investment.

Yet the business jungle also has its less appealing inhabitants. The somewhat costly “ghost” of past decisions takes the form of a white elephant – an unprofitable investment that continues to weigh on the business, while a white whale is the creature that symbolises an almost unattainable, Moby-Dick-like goal or client that keeps slipping away.

Another rare animal – the black swan – refers to an extremely unpredictable event with far-reaching consequences. And everyone wants a golden goose, because it represents a valuable resource that needs to be nurtured, like Aesop’s goose that laid the golden eggs.

Admittedly, when we step out of the corporate jungle and into the real, primordial one, the picture changes.

The jungle conjures up an image of a struggle for survival, but the natural world is not simply a world of individuals and competition. The survival of many species depends precisely on cooperation, collaboration and community.

And this is where the English language becomes particularly imaginative, having coined distinctive names for animal communities – from the familiar flocks, herds and packs to quite unusual expressions that evoke a particular image of the animals in question. The result is a small linguistic menagerie of its own: a murder of crows, an unkindness of ravens, a shiver of sharks, a conspiracy of lemurs, an army of frogs, a parliament of owls, a pride of lions, a tower of giraffes, an exaltation of larks…

These names reflect the meanings we ourselves attach to these animals. In our eyes, crows become ominous, ravens unkind, sharks eerie, owls wise, lions proud, frogs organised like an army, and larks – exalted. These collective nouns therefore tell us not only about animals, but also about ourselves – our apprehensions, our aspirations, our values.

But what if the animal jungle is actually less brutal than we think?

Perhaps it is our perception of the wilderness that prevents us from seeing the key to survival – community and cooperation.

And perhaps we could learn something from these primordial animal communities – not only about language, but also about how to survive together.

This article was originally published on the Women in Adria portal on 14 August 2026. It is available HERE.