Fauna
An English scientific term for the animal life of a region, derived from Faunus, the Roman god of the wild and forests who was identified with the Greek god Pan
The Meaning of Fauna
The word "fauna" derives from Faunus, the Roman god of the forest, plains, and fields, who was closely identified with the Greek god Pan. Faunus was a pastoral deity associated with fertility, prophecy, and the wild places beyond human cultivation. He was the protector of shepherds and their flocks, and his oracles were delivered through rustling leaves and dreams. His female counterpart, Fauna (also called Bona Dea, the Good Goddess), was an equally ancient Italian deity associated with healing and the earth's fertility. Linnaeus paired "fauna" with "flora" when he published Fauna Suecica in 1746, cataloguing the animal life of Sweden. The pairing became the standard scientific nomenclature: "flora and fauna" describes the complete biological community of a region. The word appears throughout ecology, conservation biology, palaeontology, and environmental law. "Fauna" has also been adopted by popular culture — the Australian Fauna Protection Society was one of the first wildlife conservation organisations. The mythological origin of this fundamental scientific term is a reminder of how deeply classical culture shaped the framework of modern science.
Parents
None recorded
Symbols
Fun Fact
Linnaeus published Flora Suecica and Fauna Suecica just one year apart, establishing the paired terminology that scientists worldwide still use to classify regional biology
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Flora
💭 conceptLanguage and botany
An English scientific term for the plant life of a region, derived from Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers who was identified with the Greek nymph Chloris
Fauns
🐉 creaturewoodland, pastoral
Goat-legged woodland spirits of Roman origin that became conflated with Greek Satyrs and Pans in later mythological tradition.
Goddess of the Hunt
💭 conceptHunting, wilderness, childbirth, the moon
Artemis roams the forests with her band of nymphs, protecting wild animals and punishing those who violate her sacred groves.
Nymphs & Nature Spirits
💭 conceptNature, beauty, wildness
The divine spirits who inhabited every corner of the natural world — rivers, trees, mountains, and seas — beautiful, immortal or near-immortal, and intimately bound to the landscapes they embodied.
Panes
🐉 creaturenature spirits
A race of goat-legged nature spirits modelled after the god Pan, haunting wild mountains and forests
Uranus
💭 conceptAstronomy and mythology
The seventh planet from the Sun, named after Ouranos, the primordial Greek god of the sky and the earliest supreme deity in the mythological genealogy
Aphrodite
💭 conceptAstronomy and mythology
The planet Venus is named after the Roman equivalent of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, because it is the brightest and most beautiful object in the night sky after the Moon
Faunus
⚡ godForests, fields, flocks, prophecy
Roman god of the wild, forests, and flocks, equivalent to the Greek Pan
Hybridism
💭 conceptmythology, ethics
The mythological pattern in which monsters, mixed beings, or boundary-crossers embody the transgression of natural and divine categories.
Saturn
💭 conceptAstronomy and mythology
The sixth planet from the Sun, named after Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and time identified with the Greek Titan Kronos, father of Zeus
Onokentauros
🐉 creaturehybrid creatures
A wild desert-dwelling creature combining human intelligence above the waist with donkey nature below
Geography
💭 conceptLanguage and science
An English word for the study of the earth's surface, places, and peoples, derived from the Greek geographia meaning earth-writing or earth-description