The mountain ringlet is the only truly alpine butterfly in the UK, restricted to mountain grassland in Scotland and the Lake District, facing welfare and extinction risk from climate change.
Mountain ringlet welfare is directly threatened by climate change removing suitable habitat conditions. As a cold-adapted species, warming temperatures at lower altitudes eliminate the cool, wet mountain grassland conditions the species requires. Where populations survive only at the highest available altitudes, there is no further uphill refuge available. Individual butterflies experiencing suboptimal temperatures show impaired flight performance, reduced ability to thermoregulate, and compromised reproductive success. The long larval period of two years means that adverse conditions during any part of the life cycle accumulate as welfare costs. The potential extinction of this species from the UK entirely would represent the complete elimination of a population evolved over thousands of years.