B. hortorum is common in a vast part of the West-Palaearctic region and is mentioned in many articles. In the north of Scandinavia, it extends up to the 70th parallel, but is not found in the tundra. Westward, it has been found in Iceland – where it may have been imported (Prys-Jones et al. 1981) – but not in the Azores, Canary and Madeira Is. To the south, it extends to the latitude of Madrid in the Iberian Peninsula and to Calabria in S. Italy. In Anatolia, the species is common in the north. Eastwards, it extends over the whole Siberian region, to the Ussuri R. and the Altai Mts. South-east, in N. Iran, it reaches the Mazandaran province, but not the Kopet-Dag Mts. It is absent from N. Africa and from the Mediterranean islands, except Corsica, Sicily and, perhaps, Sardinia. B. hortorum has been successfully imported to New-Zealand in 1885. There are several subspecies described, the most conspicuous one being jonghei Rasmont from Corsica, that shows a completely different colour pattern.
P. Rasmont