The authors review the current status and conservation of the High Brown Fritillary in England and Wales.
The High Brown Fritillary Argynnis adippe holds the unenviable status of Britain’s most threatened butterfly. This species has undergone a distribution decline from pre-1995 levels of 96%, to just 19 10km squares in 2010–14 (Fig. 1). This decline is also mirrored by a 20-year (1994–2014) downward population trend of 86%, as measured by the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme.