Fauna of Ireland bear mtDNA. The closest surviving brown bear is Ursus arctos middendorffi in Alaska. Only one land reptile is native to the country, the viviparous lizard. It is common in national parks, particularly in the Wicklow Mountains. Slowworms are common in parts of The Burren area in County Clare, but they are not a native species and were probably introduced in the 1970s. Five marine turtle species appear regularly off the west coast, the leatherback, green, hawksbill, loggerhead, and Kemp's ridley, but they very rarely come ashore. Legend attributes the absence of snakes in Ireland to Saint Patrick, who is said
Loggerhead shrike upon thorns or barbed wire for facilitated consumption. The numbers of Loggerhead shrike have significantly decreased in recent years, especially in Midwestern, New England and Mid-Atlantic areas. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the loggerhead shrike in his "Ornithologie" based on a specimen collected in Louisiana in the Unites States. He used the French name "La pie-griesche de la Louisiane" and the Latin "Lanius ludovicianus". Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not usually conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the