Fauna

Fauna is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora. Flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota. Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a 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 faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils.

Etymology

Fauna comes from the Latin names Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and panis is the Greek equivalent of fauna. Fauna is also the word for a book that catalogues the animals in such a manner. The term was first used by Linnaeus in the title of his 1745 work Fauna Suecica.

Subdivisions

Cryofauna

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

Fauna (album)

Fauna is the debut album by Danish recording artist Oh Land. It was released in Denmark on 10 November 2008 by Danish independent label Fake Diamond Records. The album received generally positive acclaim in her home country.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Oh Land. 

Personnel

Credits for Fauna adapted from liner notes.

Fauna (deity)

In ancient Roman religion, Fauna is a goddess said in differing ancient sources to be the wife, sister, or daughter of Faunus (the Roman counterpart of Pan).Varro regarded her as the female counterpart of Faunus, and said that the fauni all had prophetic powers. She is also called Fatua or Fenta Fauna.

Names

Varro explained the role of Faunus and Fauna as prophetic deities:

Fauni are gods of the Latins, so that there is both a male Faunus and a female Fauna; there is a tradition that they used to speak of (fari) future events in wooded places using the verses they call 'Saturnians', and thus they were called 'Fauni' from 'speaking' (fando).

Servius identifies Faunus with Fatuclus, and says his wife is Fatua or Fauna, deriving the names as Varro did from fari, "to speak," "because they can foretell the future." The early Christian author Lactantius called her Fenta Fauna and said that she was both the sister and wife of Faunus; according to Lactantius, Fatua sang the fata, "fates," to women as Faunus did to men.Justin said that Fatua, the wife of Faunus, "being filled with divine spirit assiduously predicted future events as if in a madness (furor)," and thus the verb for divinely inspired speech is fatuari.