animal group vs colony

animal group and colony both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
animal group	Yes	No	No	No
colony	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, colony is a hyponym of animal group; that is, colony is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than animal group:

Other hyponyms of animal group include team, brood, flock, flock, fold, herd, herd, pack, pod, pride, clowder, school, shoal, caste, warren, breed, stock, strain, drove, litter.

animal group (noun)	colony (noun)
a group of animals	a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government
	a group of organisms of the same type living or growing together
	(microbiology) a group of organisms grown from a single parent cell
	a geographical area politically controlled by a distant country
	a place where a group of people with the same interest or occupation are concentrated