Botany
The Mandrake
Interest in the mandrake has grown recently, due to curiosity regarding organic plants, herbal healing, use in homoeopathy and folk medicine […]
ID Guide
Botany
The Alluring Fly Agaric
The Fly Agaric, one of the most iconic, magical and frequently drawn fungi has been used throughout the ages for its hallucinogenic properties […]
ID Guide
Things to watch out for this month: The Snowdrop
One of Ireland’s most distinctive flowers, the snowdrop is often the first flower to appear in the year. Like many over-wintering bulbs the snowdrop requires a period of sharp cold in order to germinate correctly. […]
ID Guide
Comma Butterfly (Polygonia c-album) – ID Guide
The Comma is one of our most distinctive species, its butchered wings give a unique appearance that differs from any other species of butterfly in Ireland. The comma is not a widespread species and is […]
ID Guide
Small Blue (Cupido minimus) – ID Guide
The Small Blue butterfly is the smallest species of butterfly in Ireland and also has quite a restricted range, only being found in certain areas across the country. As mentioned above, the Small Blue is […]
ID Guide
Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus) – ID Guide
The Holly Blue is a beautiful and delicate species of butterfly, it is not as common as the Common Blue Butterfly, but is also a high flying species, which may contribute to a lack of […]
ID Guide
Common Blue Butterfly (Polyommatus Icarus) — ID Guide
Ireland has three blue butterfly species, the Common Blue (which we’ll be looking at in this post) the Holly Blue and Ireland’s smallest butterfly the aptly named Small Blue. These species are quite distinctive, once […]
ID Guide
Painted Lady Butterfly (Cynthia cardui) — ID Guide
The Painted Lady is a migrant species of butterfly that travels from as far away as Morocco. On some occasions we can get a great influx of the species, with it being found throughout the […]
ID Guide
Peacock Butterfly (Inachis io) — ID Guide
The Peacock Butterfly is one of our most distinctive butterfly species, it is large and brightly coloured and once seen, it is not easily forgotten. This species follows on from the last two in that […]
ID Guide
Flabellina pedata — ID Guide
Flabellina pedata unfortunately has no common name (though is sometimes synonymised as Doris pedata or Coryphella pedata). It is a species of Nudibranch, a marine mollusc, so called as their gills are not enclosed and […]
ID Guide
Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) — ID Guide
The Red Admiral butterfly is perhaps one of the best known species, even if people haven’t seen the species, most will recognise the name. The species also follows on nicely from our last profile on […]
ID Guide
Reticulated dragonet (Callionymus reticulata) — ID Guide
Rare or under recorded? This common inshore fish can be difficult to identify in the wild due to the presence of 2 other similar dragonet species in Irish inshore waters, the common (Callionymus lyra) and […]