fauna

American  

[faw-nuh] / ˈfɔ nə /

noun

• faunas,
  plural
• faunae
  plural

1. the animals of a given region or period considered as a whole.

2. a treatise on the animals of a given region or period.

3. (initial capital letter) Bona Dea.

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fauna British  

/ ˈfɔːnə /

noun

1. all the animal life of a given place or time, esp when distinguished from the plant life (flora)

2. a descriptive list of such animals

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fauna Scientific  

/ fô′nə /

• faunas
  plural

1. The animals of a particular region or time period.

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fauna Cultural  

1. Animals, especially the animals of a particular place and time.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• faunal
  adjective
• faunally
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• faunae
  plural
• faunas
  plural

Etymology

Origin of fauna

1765–75; < New Latin, special use of Latin Fauna, a feminine counterpart to Faunus; cf. Flora

Explanation

When you go on a nature walk in a school setting, your teacher might tell you to observe the flora and fauna in the woods. Flora is plant life; fauna refers to animals. Fauna derives from the name of a Roman goddess, but the handiest way to remember the difference between flora and fauna is that flora sounds like flowers, which are part of the plant world; fauna, however, sounds like "fawn," and fawns are part of the animal kingdom.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fauna faunae faunas

Furthermore, the discovery reinforces Rio Grande do Sul’s status as one of the world’s most important regions for the study of Triassic fauna.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026

Its landscapes include grasslands, lagoons, heathland and vegetated shingle, which supports a range of creatures, flora and fauna - not just birds.

From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026

Excursions are led by Orvis-endorsed guide Scott Penn, who covers the history, flora and fauna of the region along the way.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026

The county, local agencies, utilities and property owners are in a constant battle with the flora and fauna just beyond fencelines and backyards.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026

Thus, New Guineans have had ample opportunity to get to know their local flora and fauna.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

The winding evolutionary paths that these feathered faunae took to become so diverse, however, remains a mystery.

From Science Magazine ● Apr. 4, 2024

This would be the more important as, with the exception of Brazil, hardly anything is known of the shore faunae upon the greater part of the South American coast.

From Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence by Louis Agassiz

"These repeated incursions into freshwater at the early divergence stage likely accelerated speciation, and are key factors in explaining the extraordinary hyper-diversity of otophysans in modern freshwater faunas."

From Science Daily ● Nov. 3, 2025

"This is one of the most diverse marine faunas seen anywhere, at any time in history, and it existed just before the marine reptiles and the dinosaurs went extinct," Dr Longrich said.

From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2024

With hunting of large mammals common almost everywhere today, the answer to our question, we speculated, could well be zero or at best very few places left on Earth with intact large-mammal faunas.

From Scientific American ● Feb. 22, 2013

“Definitely there was a change in population leading up to the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, so something was happening to the faunas prior to the impact,” he said.

From US News ● Feb. 24, 2011

All the beast faunas and all the human cultures from the eras of the chinless Heidelberg and Piltdown men to our own time will seem in that remote perspective practically contemporaneous.

From A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open by Theodore Roosevelt