FLORA AND FAUNA

What is ‘Flora and Fauna’?

The planet Earth is a beautiful place to live in. Life has flourished on the planet, thanks to the bountiful sun and vast oceans of water.  They are two very important aspects of any eco-system. Of all the living organisms on the planet, the most commonly seen by us are the plant life and the animal life.

Flora and fauna are words originating from Latin. Flora in Latin means goddess of the flower. Flora is also derived from the word floral, which means relating to flowers. Therefore flora is a group of indigenous plants in an ecosystem of a geographical region. The origin of the word fauna is a bit shrouded in mystery. According to Roman mythology, Fauna refers to the goddess of fertility. Fauna is sometimes referred to as Fauns, meaning forest spirits. By definition, fauna is a group of indigenous animals of any geographical region.

What is Flora?

Flora is the name given to the collective plant life that grows or once grew in a certain area or during a given time period. It usually refers to the native plant life present but does include new species that have been introduced as well. The flora and fauna of the earth have names derived from Latin.

In the language, ‘Flora’ was a goddess of flowers and plants. In the Roman mythology, she was the goddess of fertility. And so, the plant kingdom came to be known as Flora. The study of the plant life around the world is very interesting since is makes different classifications of the flora.

Plant life on the earth can be distinguished from each other in a number of ways.

What is Fauna?

Fauna on the other hand, is the  name given to collective animal life that lives or was once found in a certain area or time period. In Latin, Fauna is derived from three different sources. Fauna by itself was the name of a Roman goddess representing fertility and the earth and Faunus was another Roman god. And then there were Fauns, which were known to be forest spirits.

To begin with, the animal kingdom by itself is Fauna. However, within it we have the ‘Avifauna’ that refers to the birds and ‘Piscifauna’ referring to the fish. These are simpler classifications, since they do not cover small single celled organisms such as bacteria and virus. They also do not account for the microscopic organisms that abound in nature but cannot be seen by the human eye. Such animal life is known as ‘Microfauna’. Much of the flora and fauna of the earth can be seen, but there is a very large percentage that has yet to be named and even discovered.