Abundant
Tiny size: 15-20 mm. The male is blue with dark margins, while the female is brown with variable amounts of blue suffusion. The underside of the wing is grey with small dark dots with white outlines , and with a costal spot. Larva size is about 15-20 mm. Larva is green with dark longitudinal dorsal and lateral lines, and with short pale hairs.
Widespread. AOO = 190 km2. EOO = 550,000 km2. More than 10 locations.
Widespread (All of Asia, eastern Arabia and the Levant, north Africa to Algeria.)
Cultivated and oasis habitats.
Least Concern
75 records. Latest in 2006 (oases)
Resident
March-November
Host-plants: Leguminous plants, especially alfalfa (Medicago sativa), and perhaps others in Sinai (eg Tribulus - Zygophyllaceae)
Zizeeria karsandra, the dark grass blue,[1] is a small butterfly first described by Frederic Moore in 1865. It is found from the southern Mediterranean, in a broad band to India,[1] Sri Lanka, the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia,[2] Yunnan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman, New Guinea and northern and eastern Australia.[3] It belongs to the lycaenids or blues family, and the tribe Polyommatini.[4]
Frederic Moore described this species on 1865 as: "Upperside purple-brown. Underside greyish brown, exterior margins defined by a brown line: fore wing with a spot within discoidal cell, a discocellular streak, a spot above it, and a transverse discal series of six spots black, each encircled with white; a marginal and submarginal row of pale brown, white-bordered lunules: hind wing with a series of twelve black spots, and a pale discocellular streak, encircled with white; a marginal row of pale brown, whitish-encircled spots, and a submarginal row of whitish lunules: cilia greyish brown."[5][6]
The recorded food plants include:[7]
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Upperside (male)
Upperside (female)
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In Hyderabad, India
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Moore, Frederic (1865). "List of diurnal Lepidoptera collected by Capt. A.M. Lang in the N. W. Himalayas". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 1865 (2): 505. Retrieved 10 May 2018. Zizeeria karsandra, the dark grass blue, is a small butterfly first described by Frederic Moore in 1865. It is found from the southern Mediterranean, in a broad band to India, Sri Lanka, the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Yunnan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman, New Guinea and northern and eastern Australia. It belongs to the lycaenids or blues family, and the tribe Polyommatini.
