Their long narrow shells are a common sight on our shores, especially after storms, but the animals themselves live buried in the sand.

Although they might not look it, sea cucumbers like this one belong to the Echinoderm group and are therefore closely related to starfish and sea urchins

A medium-sized diving duck, the goldeneye can mainly be spotted in winter when birds fly in from Northern Europe. Conservation efforts have helped small numbers of these birds to nest in Scotland…

The grayling is one of our largest brown butterflies and a master of disguise - its cryptic colouring helps to camouflage it against bare earth and stones in its coastal habitats and on inland…

The river lamprey is a primitive, jawless fish, with a round, sucker-mouth which it uses to attach to other fish to feed from them. Adults live in the sea and return to freshwater to spawn.

This brown seaweed lives high up on rocky shores, just below the high water mark. Its blades are usually twisted, giving it the name Spiral Wrack.