County Donegal in the herbaria of the following institutions: the Ulster Museum, Belfast; Trinity College, Dublin; NUI Galway, and the Natural History Museum, London. Records of flowering plants include "Dactylorhiza purpurella" (Stephenson and Stephenson) Soó. The animals included in the county include the European badger ("Meles meles" L.). There are habitats for the rare corn crake ("Crex crex") in the county. At various times in its history, it has been known as County Tirconaill, County Tirconnell or County Tyrconnell (). The former was used as its official name during 1922–1927. This is in reference to both the old "túath" of Tír Chonaill
Meles (genus) has been much discussion as to whether it is a single species or three distinct species. There are geographical differences between individuals from different parts of the range in skull structure, morphology of the first premolar teeth, and facial markings. Some authorities advocated placing European and Asian badgers in separate species, "Meles meles" and "Meles leptorhynchus" (Milne-Edwards, 1867), the boundary between the two being the Volga River. Others considered there to be three subspecies, "M. m. meles", found west of the Volga, "M. m. arenarius-leptorhynchus", found between the Volga and Transbaikalia, and "M. m. amurensis-anakuma" from the Amur region and