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Like many temperate areas, Great Britain has few snake species: the European adder is the only venomous snake to be found there. The other notable snakes found in Great Britain are the barred grass snake and the smooth snake. Great Britain has three native species of lizard: slowworms, sand lizards and viviparous lizards.
a species that colonised the islands during the glacial retreat at the end of the last ice age (c. 9500 years ago); a species that was present when the English Channel was created (c. 8000 years ago); or, a species that was present in prehistory. This list includes mammals from the small islands around Great Britain and the Channel Islands.
Animals repopulated Britain and Ireland. Many of the former species had gone extinct during the interval, but the majority of the surviving European temperate fauna, and some new immigrants, including modern humans ( Homo sapiens ), were able to reach Britain until the rising sea level once again isolated the islands.
The red deer (Cervus elaphus) is Ireland's largest wild mammal and could be considered its national animal. A stag appeared on the old £1 coin. The wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) enjoys an exalted position as "King of All Birds" in Irish folklore, but is the villain in the tale of Saint Stephen
There are 27 mammal species native to Ireland or naturalised in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland before 1500. The Red List of Irish terrestrial mammals was updated in 2019, with assessments of these 27 species. One species is locally extinct, one is vulnerable and 25 are least concern species. Not assessed were nine mammal ...
The mollusc fauna of the island of Ireland has not been as thoroughly researched as that of the island of Great Britain, and therefore it is possible that some uncommon and local species (whether native or introduced) may, as yet, have been overlooked. Even so, it seems that the non-marine molluscan fauna of Ireland is a smaller fauna than that ...
Britain receives a number of vagrants from Asia and North America. Some American gulls, ducks and waders are regular enough not to be considered rare, including the ring-billed gull, surf scoter and pectoral sandpiper. There is one endemic bird species found in Great Britain: the Scottish crossbill.
The mild winters mean that many species that cannot cope with harsher conditions can winter in Britain, and also that there is a large influx of wintering birds from the continent or beyond and even as far as South Africa. There are about 250 species regularly recorded in England, and another 300 that occur with varying degrees of rarity.