Mountain Ringlet (Erebia epiphron)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - butterfly > Butterfly |
| Red List Status: | Near Threatened (Not Relevant) [NT(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Erebia epiphron |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Knoch, 1783) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Fox & Dennis, 2021 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | GB Red List (Fox et al. 2022): NT. 13% decline in distribution since 1995; because of its montane distribution there is insufficient UKBMS data to calculate an abundance trend or to assess whether its populations are subject to extreme fluctuations (Fox et al. 2023). |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Montane species occurring in Scotland and only Cumbria in England. At its only two (dryer) sites in northern England, Blue Moor Grass (Sesleria caerulea) is the main foodplant, between 500 and 700m asl in England. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | No |
| Justification: | Climate change is limiting factor |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 5. Remedial action identified |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Climate change |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Structured - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Abundance trend difficult due to remote site and difficulty in walking regular transects for the species in good weather. Research work has shown that average elevation of surviving colonies has risen by 200m over the last 40-50 year (Suggitt 2018). |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Research to understand change in habitat suitability and availability at increasing elevations; are there alternative locations for assisted translocation in N England?
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 6-10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Undertake experimental trial to test management regimes that would increase suitability of sites at lower altitudes for longer (micro-habitat buffering) to maintain species presence in England and reduce risk of extinction'
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: Cumbria
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Increase monitoring effort across England (and Scotland) to enable trends on abundance to be reliably produced at both a UK and England level.
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Targeted Monitoring
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 20 sites
High priority sites: Cumbria
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.