Fauna Europaea is a database of the scientific names and distribution of all living multicellular European land and fresh-water animals. It serves as a standard taxonomic source for animal taxonomy within the Pan-European Species directories Infrastructure (PESI). [1] As of June 2020 [update], Fauna Europaea reported that their database contained 235,708 taxon names and 173,654 species names. [2]
Its construction was initially funded by the European Commission (2000–2004). The project was co-ordinated by the University of Amsterdam which launched the first version in 2004, after which the database was transferred to the Natural History Museum Berlin in 2015. [1]