megafauna
nounEtymology From mega- + fauna.
1
The large animals of a given region or time, considered as a group.
- The extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna had ended there long before it had in Europe, and so a "broad spectrum" of food collecting had been going on for some time.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 131:
2
A treatise on such a group of large animals.
- Derived terms
- charismatic megafauna, megafaunal