The bulbous buttercup has the familiar butter-yellow flowers of its namesake, but grows from a bulb-like 'corm' (a swollen underground stem). Look for it on chalk and limestone…

The eel is famous for both its slippery nature and its mammoth migration from its freshwater home to the Sargasso Sea where it breeds. It has suffered dramatic declines and is a protected species…

With its prominent, wavy crest, the great crested newt, also known as the 'warty newt', looks like a mini dinosaur! This protected species favours clean ponds during the breeding season…

The guelder-rose is a small tree of hedgerows, woods, scrub and wetlands. It displays large, white flowers in summer and red berries in autumn, which feed all kinds of birds, including Bullfinches…

Ivy-leaved toadflax is an introduced species in the UK that has become widely naturalised. Look for creeping along old walls and pavements, and shingle beaches. Its flowers resemble those of…

The thresher shark is a migratory species and passes through UK waters in the summer months. If you’re lucky, you might see this magnificent shark jump high out of the water in to the air.

Yellow corydalis is a familiar 'weed' of gardens, walls and rocky places. It is a garden escapee in the UK, so is not a native plant. Try choosing natives for your garden to prevent…

The Notch-horned cleg-fly isa horse fly dark grey in colour, with grey-brown mottled wings and intricately striped, iridescent eyes. There are 30 species of horse-fly in the UK; this is one of the…

The Alcathoe bat was 'discovered' in the UK in 2010 when it was confirmed as a separate species to the very similar whiskered and Brandt's bats. Little is known about its range and…