Six-Spot Burnet

(Lancaut Nature Reserve, Gloucestershire, July 2011)

I was very excited to find this moth as it looked fairly exotic but it turned out to be extremely common all over Europe down to Iran and up to Scandinavia... the only exception being Portugal. So I may be excused for never having seen one before. It's a day flying moth and there is another species with only five spots.

Its scientific name is Zygaena filipendulae.

Scarlet Tiger Moth

(Woodchester Park, Stroud, June 2011)

The Scarlet Tiger Moth (the hindwings are bright red but they are not visible in the photo) has the scientific name of Callimorpha Dominula and belongs to the tiger moth family Arctiidae.

Fun name: Calli(beautiful)+morpha(shaped) and Dominula which means little mistress.

Welsh Poppy

(near Wood Stanway, Cotswolds, June 2011)

The Welsh Poppy belongs to the Papaveraceae family (papaver is latin for poppy) along with the other poppies but its closest relatives are those of the Meconopsis genus which grow in the Himalayas - the famed blue poppies.

The Welsh Poppy scientific name is Meconopsis Cambrica and the flowers tend to be yellow.

Meconopsis is from the greek Mekon (poppy) + opsis (appearance) and Cambrica means from Cambria which is the classical name for Wales or Cymru.

Belted Galloway Cow ('Beltie')

(Woodchester Park, Stroud, June 2010)

These are probably the result of cross breeding between the Scottish original black Galloway cattle and the Dutch belted cows or Lakenvelder.

The cattle is naturally polled which means they have no horns and the little bumps on their heads where the horns should have been are called scurs.

Common Bird's-Foot-Trefoil

(near Hawkwood College, Stroud, Glos., June 2011)

This one - Lotus Corniculatus - belongs to the Pea Family or Fabaceae (latin origin of the Spanish Fabas!) which is also known as Leguminosae, Bean Family or Pulse Family. In this case the seeds aren't eaten as legumes but the herb is used for pasture.

The flower is zygomorphic - from the greek zygon (yoke) + morphic (having a shape). It means the flowers are bilaterally symmetrical: they can be divided by a single plane into two-mirror image halves like a yoke.

Corniculatus comes from corniculum which means small horn, hence the horn-like names for this plant in the romance languages.

(French: Lotier Corniculé , Spanish: Cuernecillo, Portuguese: Cornichão, German: Wiesen Schotenklee)