It's easy to see where the blue shark got its name from. These sleek, elegant sharks have beautiful metallic blue backs which provide brilliant camouflage out in the open ocean.

This small reddish-purple seaweed grows in small branching fans on rocky shores. It is widely used in the food industry - and might have been used to produce your ice cream, beer or even jelly!…

The hart's-tongue fern is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has simple, tongue-shaped, glossy, green leaves that have orange spores on…

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…

The common whelk is the largest sea snail found in UK seas, though you're more likely to find the dry balls of empty whelk egg capsules washed up in strandlines.

Another member of the echinoderm phylum, feather stars share some characteristics with true starfish, but also have their very own intriguing adaptations and behaviours, which make them a…

These non-native limpets arrived from America in the 19th century and are now widespread in the UK. They form stacks and have a specially adapted shell which, when flipped upside down, looks like…

The large, sunshine-yellow flowers of the yellow iris brighten up the margins of our waterways, ponds, wet woods, fens and marshes. Also called the 'flag iris', its outer petals have a…

Many of us have felt the painful bite of the Twin-lobed deer-fly (a 'horse-fly') while out walking in damp grasses or woods. But mostly, it prefers to feed on the blood of cows and…

The song thrush is a familiar garden visitor that has a beautiful and loud song. The broken shells of their blue, spotty eggs can often be found under a hedge in spring.

Famous for its fearsome jaws, the stag beetle does not have the bite to match. Look for it in woods, parks and gardens in South East England in summer. Males display their massive jaws to attract…

Famed for their cunning and stealth, these orangey-red dogs with their bushy tails can be seen in towns and the countryside. They come out mostly at night but can also be seen during the day if…