Fauna

Fauna is a collective term for animal life. The corresponding term for plants is flora; the term which includes both fauna and flora is biota. The name comes from Fauna, a Roman fertility and earth goddess. The term was first used by Linnaeus in the title of his 1746 work Fauna Suecica.

Zoologists and paleontologists usually use fauna to refer to the typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna".

Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of 80 or so faunal stages, which are a series of rocks all containing similar fossils.

Subdivisions of fauna

Cryptofauna

Cryptofauna are animals that are rarely seen and may be extinct or mythological.

Cryofauna

Cryofauna are animals that live in, or very close to, ice.

Epifauna

Epifauna are non-photosynthetic, benthic organisms that live upon the surface of sediments or soils.

Infauna

Infauna are aquatic organisms (usually animals, but sometimes algae) that live within particulate media such as sediments or soil. They are most common in the subtidal and deeper zones.

Macrofauna

Macrofauna are benthic or soil organisms which are at least several centimeters in length.

Megafauna

Main article: Megafauna

Megafauna are large animals of any particular region or time.

Meiofauna

Meiofauna are small benthic invertebrates that live in both marine and fresh water environments. The term Meiofauna loosely defines a group of organisms by their size, larger than microfauna but smaller than macrofauna, rather than a taxonomic grouping. In practice this are organisms that can pass through a 1 mm mesh but will be retained by a 45 μm mesh, but the exact dimensions will vary from researcher to researcher. Whether an organism will pass through a 1 mm mesh will also depend upon whether it is alive or dead at the time of sorting.

Mesofauna

Mesofauna are macroscopic soil invertebrates such as arthropods, earthworms, and nematodes.

Microfauna

Microfauna are microscopic or very small animals (usually including protozoans and very small animals such as rotifers.

Other terms include avifauna, which means "bird fauna" and piscifauna, which means "fish fauna".

See also

• Animal
• Biome
• Flora

External links

• Fauna & Flora International