
Hello, friends! Welcome to another episode of Sciency Words, a special series here on Planet Pailly where we talk about the definitions and etymologies of science or science related terms. In today’s post, we’re talking about two words:
FLORA AND FAUNA
So this weekend, I was thinking about alien life, as I often do, and it occurred to me that the words “plant” and “animal” are woefully inappropriate words to apply to extraterrestrial organisms. That got me wondering if maybe the words “flora” and “fauna” would be better.
This is hardly a revolutionary insight. Arik Kershenbaum talks about this in his book The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy. You see, in the cosmic sense, when we’re considering life across the entire universe, the words “plant” and “animal” are highly Earth-specific terms. Strictly speaking, plants are organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae, and animals are organisms belonging to the kingdom Animalia. These kingdoms are two branches of the tree of life—Earth’s tree of life. Not Mars’s tree of life. Not Proxima b’s tree of life. Earth’s.
Extraterrestrial life forms would belong to the kingdom… who the heck knows? I guess astro-taxonomists will have to figure that out if/when extraterrestrial life is discovered. In the meantime, would it make sense to use the words “flora” and “fauna” as generic terms for plant-like and animal-like aliens? Initially I thought it would, but after doing some research, I’m not so sure.
Definitions of flora and fauna: In ecology, the words flora and fauna refer to all the plants and animals, respectively, found within a particular ecological region.
Etymologies of flora and fauna: The word “flora” traces back to the Latin word for flower. Fauna comes from the name of an ancient Roman goddess of fertility.
So the words flora and fauna are not exactly synonyms for plants and animals; however, they do include the words “plants” and “animals” in their definitions. And extraterrestrials, no matter how plant-like or animal-like they may be, would still have to be categorized as something else.
I still feel like referring to alien life forms as flora and fauna is better than calling them plants and animals. Or at least it’s less wrong. But it’s still not perfect. In a distant, Sci-Fi future, new terminology may need to be invented.
WANT TO LEARN MORE?
I highly recommend reading The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy by Arik Kershenbaum. Obviously we do not know at this point what alien life might be like, but, as Kershenbaum argues, we can make some educated guesses based on the way life on Earth does (or does not) work.