page_title: Armenian cochineal
section_title: Habitat and conservation
hierarchical_section_title: Armenian cochineal / Habitat and conservation
caption_attribution_description: English: Annotated satellite image of part of the historic habitat of the insect Porphyrophora hamelii (Armenian cochineal or vordan karmir)
context_page_description: The Armenian cochineal, also known as the Ararat cochineal or Ararat scale, is a scale insect indigenous to the Ararat plain and Aras River valley in the Armenian Highlands. It was formerly used to produce an eponymous crimson carmine dyestuff known in Armenia as vordan karmir and historically in Persia as kirmiz. The species is critically endangered within Armenia.
  The Armenian cochineal scale insect, Porphyrophora hamelii, is in a different taxonomic family from the cochineal found in the Americas. Both insects produce red dyestuffs that are also commonly called cochineal.
context_section_description: The red dye-producing insects of the Ararat plain were once plentiful:  a 19th-century French traveler wrote that shepherds' flocks, when led to drink from the Araxes (Araks) River, would appear bloody from the insects.  In the mid-20th century the extent of occurrence in Armenia was 100 km² (39 sq mi) with a recorded distribution that included the Ararat and Armavir provinces in Armenia as well as the Turkish, Iranian, and Russian Caucasus, but by the 1990s the extent of occurrence in Armenia had shrunk to about 20 km² (7.7 sq mi), mostly in Armavir Province.  During the Soviet period, desalination of the Armenian salt marshes to create "economic and agricultural regions", and the creation of lakes for fisheries, "severely restricted the [habitable] area for the insects and [endangered their] existence."
  The population in Armenia resides almost entirely in the Vordan Karmir State Reservation, a salt meadow habitat of 198.33 ha (490.1 acres) northwest of Arazap village and 21.52 ha (53.2 acres) in the north of Jrarat village established in 1987 near the Araks River border with Turkey, plus a site southeast of Ararat village and a few patches of several hectares elsewhere. There have been no recent scientific reports on populations of Porphyrophora hamelii outside the surroundings of Mount Ararat.
  Porphyrophora hamelii is considered critically endangered within Armenia by meeting the following conditions:  an area of occupancy of less than 10 km² (3.9 sq mi), plus severely fragmented occupancy or known to exist at only a single location, plus continued decline (observed, inferred, or projected) in the area of occurrence, area of occupancy, and area, extent, and/or quality of habitat; and an extent of occurrence of less than 100 km² (39 sq mi) with the aforementioned conditions of continued decline.
  Threats to the Porphyrophora hamelii population in Armenia include the development of saline lands, agricultural improvements, uncontrolled livestock grazing, and possibly climate change.  Natural foes of the species include mold mites, lady beetles, harvester ants, and erratic ants.
caption: The historic habitat of Porphyrophora hamelii.  Vordan Karmir State Reservation is in red and the historic dye-producing cities Artashat and Dvin are in purple.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D2Xs", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.8.4", "Image DateTime": "2014:10:19 14:21:19", "Image ExifOffset": "200", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "920", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9198", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:07:08 08:16:11", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:07:08 08:16:11", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1120723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6918863/1000000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "4294967295", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "65", "EXIF SubSecTime": "24", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "24", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "24", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4288", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2848", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "97", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Soft", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}