Podisma pedestris (Linnaeus, 1758)

Holuša, Jaroslav, Kočárek, Petr, Vlk, Robert & Marhoul, Pavel, 2013, Annotated checklist of the grasshoppers and crickets (Orthoptera) of the Czech Republic, Zootaxa 3616 (5), pp. 437-460 : 446

Podisma pedestris (Linnaeus, 1758)

This species was reported from Bohemia by Haury & Nickerl (1905) but without any specific information concerning locality. Krejčí (1896) refers to Fieber (1853), but there is no occurrence listed. Obenberger (1926) mentioned Upper Silesia but without any concrete citation. This species has been demonstrably found only at two localities in the CR. At Boskovice and before World War II (Ginter 1924), P. pedestris was found but only rarely on steep, sunny, and grassy slopes near the forest; it has not been found at that locality since the end of World War II (Ginter in litt.). The locality of Ostružná (Dobšík & Chládek 1975) appears to provide suitable habitat for the species but its occurence there has not been recently confirmed.

P. pedestris is Euro-Siberian species distributed from Spain through northern Europe (to Lapland); from central, southern (as far as Apenino Tosco-Emiliano), and eastern Europe to the Balkan Peninsula as far as Bulgaria (Peshev & Andreeva 1986, 1988) and Mount Olympus (Nadig 1991). Besides those localities that are a continuous part of its distributional range in the high mountains, e.g., in Slovakia (I–Klub Slovenských Orthopterológov 2006- 2012) or in Romania (Iorgu et al. 2008), there is a number of isolated localities in some other European countries. In Hungary, it has been found at 1.6 % of localities (Nagy et al. 2010), and it is still present in north Hungary, although data from western Hungary have not been confirmed in the last 50 years. In Germany, it is known from seven squares (grid mapping), where it still survives (Reinhardt et al. 2005). In Lower Austria, it was much less abundant during the period 1990-1995 than in the first half of 20th century (Berg & Zuna-Kratky 1997; Berg 2002).

Optimal conditions for P. pedestris are provided by subalpine and sometimes in dwarf-pine environments. However, it may also be found on avalanche slopes, forest clearings, gravel fields, and dry grasslands, but less often than on mesophilous and hygrophilous habitats including alluvial sediments on river banks or near dried-up springs and swamps (Holst 1986; Nadig 1991; Čejchan 1959; Šušlík 1986; Krištín & Hrúz 2005). In addition, it occurs quite often in many areas in the Austrian and Swiss Alps, even in places greatly damaged by ski-tourism (Bellmann 2006).

At published Czech localities, it has not been recently detected, but its occurrence at small isolated localities, as is the case for Miramella alpina (for listing see Holuša 1999), cannot be excluded. For instance, ski slopes in the CR have not been satisfactorily surveyed yet.