Faunist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who studies or specializes in the animals of a particular region or period; an expert in the classification and distribution of wildlife; one who catalogs or documents local or historical animal species
2. An individual engaged in the scientific study of animal life within specific habitats or eras; a specialist who identifies and examines various animal species; someone who records data concerning the animals found in defined areas
3. A researcher focused on identifying and analyzing animal populations in certain geographic or temporal zones; an authority on the systematic grouping and characteristics of fauna; a person responsible for compiling information about animal species present in particular locations or times

Etymology: Fauna itself is a name with a story. In Roman myth, Faunus was a rural god of woods and fields, and the Latin "fauna" was the name for the goddess who was his female counterpart, the sister or wife of Faunus, linked to the wild and the countryside. Naturalists later borrowed the name for the animal life of a place, so the word for a collection of animals carries the name of a god of the wild. "Faunist" is built by adding the suffix "-ist" to "fauna." The suffix marks a person who practices or specializes in something, as with "botanist" or "geologist," so a faunist is someone who studies the animals of a region or period. The pattern of pairing a word for a field of study with "-ist" follows the same model as those sister terms, which is why the form is easy to read at a glance.

Synonyms: zoologist, animal expert, naturalist