NO ANIMAL has as many names as the ‘American lion’. According to the Guinness Book of Records, there are over 40.

In December 1948, lighthouse keepers spotted what turned out to be a beluga whale off Clare Island, County Mayo.

THE European eel is in trouble. 

A story of three bears, without Goldilocks, is in the news in Canada. It began last month when a female black bear began breaking into a mobile home in Port Hardy, Vancouver Island, to steal meat and fish from a freezer.

According to the Old Testament, a talking serpent led Adam and Eve astray, with dire consequences for us all, writes Richard Collins

I have just fulfilled a lifelong ambition to visit the great forest which stretches from eastern Poland deep into Belarus. The huge expanse of broadleaved and conifer trees, known as Bialowie´za, is now a national park and a Unesco World Heritage site.

E UROPE, the second smallest of the seven continents, covers seven per cent of the world’s landmass and has about 742m citizens. More than two billion pairs of birds, of some 530 species, nest here.

Reports that paddle-boarders encountered a humpback whale off West Cork on June 17 have made east coast dwellers green with envy.

FEW insects, apart from butterflies, have managed to become celebrities. Ladybirds are a spectacular exception; everybody knows these colourful members of the beetle family.

Birds’ beaks are getting bigger, according to researchers in Australia.