Their empty, delicate pink or yellow shells can often be found washed up on beaches, but the animals themselves live buried in the sand all around the coasts of the UK.

The Noble chafer is a rare and beautiful metallic-green beetle that can be found in traditional orchards. It is on the wing over summer, feeding on umbellifers. The larvae live in the decaying…

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 large, brown beetle can be seen swarming around streetlights in spring. They live underground as larvae for years and emerge as adults often in large numbers. Listen for their characteristic…

A summer visitor, the wheatear is a handsome chat, with black cheeks, white eyestripes, a blue back and a pale orange chest. Look for it on upland heaths and moors.

Sea potatoes may have a funny name, but they are perfectly adapted for life in the sand. They are a type of sea urchin that live in a burrow in the sand, feeding on dead animals and plants using…

You are most likely to spot the cat flea if you have pets. It will feed on cats, dogs and people, although it can't live on us. It is a pest and needs to be controlled in the house for the…

Orca, sometimes known as ‘killer whales’, are unmistakable with their black and white markings. Although we do have a small group of orca who live in British waters, you would be lucky to see them…

The Yew is a well-known tree of churchyards, but also grows wild on chalky soils. Yew trees can live for hundreds of years, turning into a maze of hollow wood and fallen trunks beneath dense…

There are several species of spider that live in our wetlands, but the water spider is the only one that spends its life under the water. In its pond habitats, it looks silvery because of the air…