fauna
noun
Fauna — the animal life proper to a particular place or time
Definition
A living organism characterized by voluntary movement
In depth
Fauna names the animal life characteristic of a given region, period, or environment, a collective term that lets writers and scientists speak of an entire ecosystem's creatures in a single gesture. The word is always relational: fauna exists in reference to a place, distinguishing the animals of the rainforest from those of the tundra.
Origin
The word comes from Fauna, a Roman goddess of nature, fertility, and the forest, sister or consort to Faunus, the rustic god of woodland and field. Linnaeus, the eighteenth-century father of modern taxonomy, borrowed her name directly for his work cataloguing Swedish wildlife, fixing it permanently in scientific vocabulary.
Usage examples
"The naturalist spent decades cataloguing the fauna of the archipelago, certain that several species existed nowhere else on Earth."
"Climate change had already begun reshaping the region's fauna, driving species northward in search of cooler ground."
"The museum's diorama recreated, in startling detail, the fauna of an age long vanished from the Earth."
How to use it
Fauna is the standard scientific and naturalist's term for animal life as a collective category, almost always paired conceptually, if not directly, with its botanical counterpart 'flora.' It suits formal nature writing, scientific reports, and travel prose describing a region's wildlife.
Related concepts
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