megafauna

[ meg-uh-faw-nuh ]

noun

1. Zoology. large or giant animals, especially of a given area. Because megafauna tend to have long lives and slow population growth and recovery rates, many such species, as elephants and whales, are particularly vulnerable to overexploitation by humans.
2. Ecology. animals of a given area that can be seen with the unaided eye.
3. Classical Mythology. large or giant mythical creatures, often resembling a familiar animal, as a hellhound, or a composite of different animals, as a griffin.

megafauna

/ ˈmɛɡəˌfɔːnə /

noun

1. the component of the fauna of a region or period that comprises the larger terrestrial animals

megafauna

/ mĕg′ə-fô′nə /

1. Large or relatively large animals of a particular place or time period. Saber-toothed tigers and mastodons belong to the extinct megafauna of the Oligocene and Pleistocene Epochs.

Word History and Origins

Origin of megafauna¹

First recorded in 1925–30; mega- + fauna

Example Sentences

Farther inland, you can spot all kinds of life-list megafauna within just a few hours of Montréal.

From Outside Online

The opening is for an ecosystems stewardship administrator, a brand-new role that will include managing the local megafauna, planning new public lands, and metering local carbon use.

From Outside Online

Strikingly, this transition happened only after the ice age megafauna—mammoths, giant ground sloths, giant deer, and horses—disappeared.

From Singularity Hub 

Seven of those layers, in the area Bennett and his colleagues recently excavated, held human tracks along with those of long-lost megafauna.

From Ars Technica

The combination of a weak magnetic field and this decrease in the sun’s output around the same time “created the perfect storm” of climate and broader environmental changes, placing a major stress on megafauna populations, Turney says.

From Science News

Within a few thousand years of human arrival on Australia, all the continent's megafauna were hunted to extinction.

From The Daily Beast