The article examines the vocal function of zootropes on the basis of lexicographic sources – “Russian Semantic Dictionary” (ed. by N. Shvedova), “The Big Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” (ed. by S. Kuznetsov) and data from the Russian National Corpus. The paper presents the features of the use of lexical units in terms of gender, as well as new cases of the use of zootropes in the late 20th – early 21st centuries. The main derivational model of change in zoomorphic vocatives is revealed.