Fauna is a collective term for animal life. The corresponding term for plants is flora. Technically, the proper term for fauna plus flora is biota, but fauna is often used instead. In zoology and paleontology the term is often used to refer to the typical collection of animals (and sometimes plants) found in a specific time and/or place -- e.g. the 'Sonoran Desert fauna' or the 'Burgess shale fauna'. Phyla Porifera (sponges) Ctenophora (comb jellies) Cnidaria Placozoa Subregnum Bilateria  Acoelomorpha  Orthonectida  Rhombozoa  Myxozoa  Superphylum Deuterostomia     Chordata (vertebrates, etc. ... In Botany a Flora (or Floræ) is a collective term for plant life and can also refer to a descriptive catalogue of the plants of any geographical area, geological period, etc. ... Biota is the plant and animal life of a region or area. ... Zoology (Greek zoon = animal and logos = word) is the biological discipline which involves the study of animals. ... A paleontologist carefully chips rock from a column of dinosaur vertebrae. ... Sonoran Desert wildlife Mountains in the Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which straddles part of the border between the United States and Mexico and covers large parts of the states of Arizona, California and Sonora. ... The Burgess shale (named after Mount Burgess, near where the shale was found) is a black shale found high up in the Canadian Rockies in Yoho National Park near the town of Field, British Columbia. ...

Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of 80 or so faunal stages. Faunal stages are a subdivision of geologic time used primarily by paleontologists who study fossils rather than by geologists who study rock formations. ...