A clever mimic, the wasp beetle is black-and-yellow and moves in a jerky, flight-like fashion - fooling predators into thinking it is actually a more harmful common wasp. Look for it in hedgerows…

Famed for its tapping in the middle of the night, supposedly heralding tragedy, the Deathwatch beetle is a serious wood-boring pest. In houses, their tunnelling can cause major damage.

A fierce pirate of the sea, the Arctic skua is renowned for stealing fish from other seabirds and dive-bombing anyone that comes near its nests. It breeds in the far north of Scotland and on the…

Cuttlefish are related to squids and octopuses – a group of molluscs known as cephalopods. You may have seen the chalky internal shell, called a cuttlebone washed up on beaches around the UK.…

Piddocks are a boring bivalve. No, we don't mean dull... we mean that it bores into soft rock, creating a burrow. In fact, they're the opposite of dull - they glow in the dark!

A pale member of the violet family sometimes known as ‘milk violet’, the fen violet has a delicate and unassuming appearance. A real specialist of the wetland habitat, this species has seen a…

The dark-blue flowers of Common milkwort pepper our grasslands from May to September. It can also appear in pink and white forms.

A late-blooming flower, Meadow saffron looks like a crocus, displaying similar pink flowers once its leaves have died back. It is a highly poisonous plant of meadows and woodland rides and…