Distribution and biological peculiarities in Armenia: The species is common throughout southern Europe and is also found in northern Africa and western and central Asia. Armenia is inhabited by nominate subspecies, which occupies rather wide variety of natural and anthropogenic landscapes, including deciduous forests and woodlands, riparian scrubs, parks, and orchards at the elevations from 400 to about 2400 m a.s.l. The species uses various Viola spp as the host plants. It gives one generation per year and the butterflies are on wing from late May until late October depending on elevation.
Population dynamics: The species is slightly uncommon within typical habitat, and shows stable population trend in 2003-2013 (p>0.05), which is partly justified by wide distribution of potential host-plants and ability of the species to switch between them.
Conservation measures: The species is not included in the Global and National Red Lists, as well as in CITES and Bern Conventions, but is evaluated for European Red Book as Least Concern, the same status that the Cardinal deserves for Armenia, especially taking into consideration that the distribution of the species is widely covered by National Protected Areas, Emerald Sites, and Prime Butterfly Areas. Therefore the Cardinal doesn't need special conservation measures in Armenia, but it is important to continue its monitoring as relatively specialized species.