Fauna vs Flora: What’s the Difference?

The difference at a glance

Fauna refers to all animal life in a region. Flora refers to all plant life in that same region.

What does Fauna mean?

noun · /ˈfɔː.nə/

The animals of a particular region, habitat, or geological period, considered collectively. Always discussed alongside 'flora'. The fauna of a place is the animal component of its life — from insects to mammals.

Fauna in a sentence

The island's fauna had evolved in isolation for millions of years — fearless of predators that had never arrived.

The survey catalogued the local fauna: forty-seven species of bird, twelve of mammal, hundreds of insects.

What does Flora mean?

noun · /ˈflɔː.rə/

The plants of a particular region, habitat, or geological period, considered collectively. A complete account of the plants of a particular area. Flora is the plant component of a place's life — the green, the flowering, the rooted.

Flora in a sentence

The flora of the Alpine meadow was astonishing — hundreds of species compressed into a few weeks of summer.

Invasive species had displaced the native flora so completely that locals no longer remembered what the valley had looked like.

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