Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens, set in a picturesque spot overlooking the harbour, are home to some of Australia's oldest and rarest trees – and also to a large colony of screeching, squabbling giant bats.

Australia's rarest mammal, the Christmas Island pipistrelle bat, is months away from extinction, and wildlife experts say the government is failing to take action that could save the species.

Anyone planning to take a Mediterranean holiday in defiance of the plunging pound may be stung by something more painful than the exchange rate: the killer Portuguese Man o' War, one of the world's most poisonous jellyfish. The graceful glutinous creature, whose trailing tentacles carry a potentially lethal poison, was spotted this week off Spain's favourite beaches for the first time in 10 years.

A police investigation was launched yesterday into the death of a Golden Eagle.

Thousands of people are joining in an internet game to map the most scenic parts of Britain with the click of a mouse.

Go down to Kew in lilac time, wrote the poet Alfred Noyes in a ditty called The Barrel Organ, singing the praises of the blossoms and the birds in the Royal Botanic Gardens at the height of the spring. Shame he didn’t mention the butterflies.

Go down to Kew in lilac time, wrote the poet Alfred Noyes in a ditty called The Barrel Organ, which sang the praises of the blossoms and birds in the Royal Botanic Gardens at the height of spring. Shame he didn't mention the butterflies.

The catastrophic decline of the common seal population in Scottish waters could be blamed partly on killer whales, marine biologists believe.