''Polyommatus damonides'', the Damonides blue, is a

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprise ...

of the family

Lycaenidae Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterf ...

. It was described by

Otto Staudinger Otto Staudinger (2 May 1830 – 13 October 1900) was a German entomologist and a natural history dealer considered one of the largest in the world specialising in the collection and sale of insects to museums, scientific institutions, and in ...

in 1899. It is endemic to the southern part of the

Zangezur Mountains The Zangezur Mountains ( hy, Զանգեզուրի լեռներ or Սյունյաց լեռներ, az, Zəngəzur dağları) are a mountain range that defines the border between Armenia's southern provinces of Syunik, Vayots Dzor, and Azerbaijan ...

, where it is known in two populations. One is the vicinity of the town of

Meghri Meghri ( hy, Մեղրի) is a town and the center of the urban community of Meghri, in Syunik Province in southern Armenia, near the border with Iran. As of the 2011 census, the population of the town was 4,580. According to the 2020 official es ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...

( Syunik marz) and another lives near the town of

Ordubad Ordubad is the second largest city of Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and the capital of an eponymous district. Ordubad is a medieval city of the Caucasus and in its current capacity of a town was founded in the 18th century. The town ...

in Nakhichevan.

Distribution and biological peculiarities

It is endemic of southern part of the Zangezur Mountains where is known in two populations. One population inhabits the southern part of Syunik province in Armenia, and another is in the southern region of Nakhichevan. The species inhabits a semi-desert zone. The host plant is not confirmed yet. In Armenia the species inhabits a narrow belt from 900 to 1200 metres above sea level, however, the boundaries of its range are not clarified. Flight period lasts from late May to late June.

Population dynamics

For a long period, the Damonides blue was considered extinct from Armenia, since the last records dated to 1973 and the majority of its habitat was destroyed by

open-pit mining Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mini ...

. However, in 2010 it was rediscovered at a patch of habitat left in the foothills of the southwestern slopes of the Zangezur Mountains. The data is insufficient for calculation of trends, but it can be stated that its number is fairly low even at the typical habitat. Expansion of the open pit remains the major threat that can ultimately destroy the species' habitat and lead to its local extinction. Also, grazing of goats and sheep has some influence on the habitat by possibly removing the species host plant.

Conservation measures

The species has not yet been evaluated for the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

. It is included in the ''Red Book of Animals of Armenia'' as critically endangered CR B1ab (i, ii, iii) + B2b (i, ii, iii). It is not listed in

CITES CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...

or the Bern Convention. The two most important conservation steps are: * obtaining the distribution range of the species and including its distribution area into the boundaries of the Zangezur Biosphere Complex * evaluating the species for the IUCN Red List. These measures will allow further development of a management plan for the habitat of the species.The Red Book of Animals of the Republic of Armenia. Asoghik. Available at http://www.mnp.am/red_book_fauna/eng/a140.html

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18389295 Butterflies described in 1899 Polyommatus Taxa named by Otto Staudinger Butterflies of Asia