noun
definition
Animals considered as a group; especially those of a particular country, region, time.
example
the fauna of China
definition
A book, cataloguing the animals of a country.
Examples of fauna in a Sentence
Asia, the same fauna extending in Siberia as far as the Yenisei and the Lena.
The fauna of the peninsula is varied and no less profuse than is the vegetable life.
The origin of the fauna and flora of Australia has attracted considerable attention.
The state possesses a rich fauna and flora.
The fauna of the scrub in the river valleys is decidedly rich, and includes aquatic birds.
The fauna of Liberia is sufficiently peculiar, at any rate as regards vertebrates, to make it very nearly identical with a "district" or sub-province of the West African province, though in this case the Liberian "district" would not include the northernmost portions of the country and would overlap on the east and west into Sierra Leone and the French Ivory Coast.
In the British fresh-water fauna only two genera, Hydra and Cordylophora, are found; in America occurs an additional genus, Microhydra.
It is well known that Darwin was deeply impressed by differences in flora and fauna, which seemed to be functions of locality, and not the result of obvious dissimilarities of environment.
Pseudis was first described by Marie Sibylle de Merlon (1647-1717), in her work on the fauna of Surinam (published first in 1705 at Amsterdam, republished in Latin in 1719), as a frog changing into a fish.
Of the extremely limited Samoan fauna, consisting mainly of an indigenous rat, four species of snakes and a few birds, the most interesting member is the Didunculus strigirostris, a ground pigeon of iridescent greenish-black and bright chestnut plumage, which forms a link between the extinct dodo and the living African Treroninae.
Moreover the fauna and flora of New Zealand in many ways resemble those of Samoa.
The foregoing brief review of the principal territorial divisions according to which the forms of life are distributed in Asia, indicates how close is the dependence of this distribution on climatic conditions, and this will be made more apparent by a somewhat fuller account of the main features of the flora and fauna.
Nearly all the mammals of Europe also occur in northern Asia, where, however, the Palaearctic fauna is enriched by numerous additional species.
The ornithology of northern Asia is even more closely allied to that of Europe than the mammal fauna.
The mammal fauna of the Indian region of Asia is much more highly developed than that of the Palaearctic. The Quadrumana are represented by several peculiar genera, amongst which are Semnopithecus, Hylobates and Simia.
The Ethiopian fauna plays but a subordinate part in Asia, intruding only into the south-western corner, and occupying the desert districts of Arabia and Syria, although some of the characteristic species reach still farther into Persia and Sind, and even into western India.
Industrial contaminants can be particularly harmful to the aquatic fauna, with some species unable to tolerate the change in water quality.
The flora and fauna of Juan Fernandez are in most respects Chilean.
The name is derived from galapago, a tortoise, on account of the giant species, the characteristic feature of the fauna.
The Leptolinae are chiefly forms belonging to the inshore fauna.
C. Watson, and his conclusions were enforced ten years later by Edward Forbes, who dealt also with the fauna.
Wallace as representing the so-called Wallace's Line, whereby he demarcated the Asiatic from the Australian fauna.
In the Urals the marine facies is more fully developed and the fauna shows affinities with that of the Productus limestone of the Central Asian mountain belt.
The destruction of the forests and the advance of wheat into the prairies are rapidly thinning the steppe fauna.
Nordenskiold's Vega-expeditionens Vetenskapliga Iakttagelser (5 vols., Stockholm, 2872-87) may be consulted for the mammals of the tundra region and marine fauna.
Excepting the barren lands of the Antarctic regions, with which Patagonia is somewhat associated by a broken string of islands, the nearest continental lands of a more habitable kind are South Africa and New Zealand., In contrast to the sub-Arctic land ring, here is a sub-Antarctic ocean ring, and as a result the land flora and fauna of South America to-day are strongly unlike the life forms of the other south-ending continents.
The fauna of this sea has been studied by Eichwald, Kowalevsky, Grimm, Dybowski, Kessler and Sars.
The museum contains a natural history section with the complete fauna and flora of Transylvania, and a rich ethnographical section.
The fluvio-marine deposits of the Upper Eocene and Oligocene formations contain an interesting mammalian fauna, proving that the African continent formed a centre of radiation for the mammalia in early Tertiary times.
Crystalline rocks crop out at several capes; Cretaceous limestones, containing an abundant and specific fauna of gigantic ammonites, occur at Dui on the west coast, and Tertiary conglomerates, sandstones, marls and clays, folded by subsequent upheavals, in many parts of the island.
The Pliocene deposits contain a mollusc fauna more arctic than that which exists at the present time, indicating probably that the connexion between the Pacific and Arctic Oceans was broader than it is now.
The analogy possibly may be extended to such cases as the occurrence of flora or fauna with alpine characters on the summits of mountains separated by broad zones of tropical climate.
The fauna of Ecuador is comparatively poor in mammalia, but the birds and still more the insects are very numerous.
The fauna and flora, which are similar to those of the other North Central States of North America, impressed the early explorers with their richness and variety.
In 1864 was founded the Palestine Exploration Fund, under the auspices of which an ordnance survey map of the country was completed (published 1881), and accompanied by volumes containing memoirs on the topography, orography, hydrography, archaeology, fauna and flora, and other details.
The fauna includes the elephant, hippopotamus, lion and several species of antelope.
The flora is even more peculiar than the fauna.
The flora and also (though to a less degree) the fauna present not only Asian and Central African affinities, but, what is more interesting, Mascarene, South African and Antipodean-American relationships, indicating a very different distribution of land and water and necessitating other bridges of communication than now exist.
It is largely arid and there are no permanent streams. Its zoology resembles that of Sokotra, but the fauna includes land shells and scorpions peculiar to Abd-elKuri.
The fauna includes the lion, leopard, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, buffalo, zebra, kudu and many other kinds of antelope, wild pig, ostrich and crocodile.
The extinct fauna of Mauritius has considerable interest.
The fauna includes, in the low country, the lion, panther, elephant, camel, and antelope of numerous species.
On the plateau the fauna is that of Abyssinia.
Although the Philippines are commonly held to form an eastern extension of the Indo-Malayan sub-region, there is a large amount of specialization in the fauna of the islands eastward of the Palawan group. Mammals are scarce.
Especial importance attaches to the unexpected discovery by Whitehead of a new and peculiar mammalian fauna, inhabiting a small plateau on the top of Mt Data, in north Luzon, at an altitude of more than 7000 ft.
The fauna of the lake and of its tributaries - explored by Nikolsky - is more akin to the fauna of the rivers of the Tarim basin than to that of the Aral; it also does not contain the common frog.
The fauna includes the horse, reindeer, mammoth, cave lion, rhinoceros, bear and urus.
The fauna comprises most of the animals and birds common to the Gangetic plain; but the wild elephant is now practically unknown, except when a stray specimen loses its way at the foot of the hills.
The fauna and flora are both comparatively meagre.
The fauna is not so varied as was formerly the case, large game having been to a great extent driven out of the coast regions.