As Bombus monticola is widespread in most of the mountain ridges of Europe (fig.BMON) and as its attractive coat colours make it quite conspicuous, it is often mentioned in the literature, mostly under the name "lapponicus". The recent separation between B. monticola and B. lapponicus s.s. makes the interpretation of these older data rather difficult (Svensson, 1979a; Pekkarinen et al., 1982). Up to now, B. monticola has not been observed out of Europe. In the north of the continent, it lives in the mountains of Scandinavia and down to the sea level in the north of Norway and the Kola peninsula. In Finland, it is only found in a few places along the Norwegian border (contrary to B. lapponicus s.s., which extends south to the Gulf of Bothnia) (Pekkarinen et al., 1981). The populations from Fennoscandia belong to the ssp. scandinavicus Friese.
The rather dark populations from the British Is. belong to the nominal subspecies.
The populations from the Alps and the Balkan belong to the ssp. alpestris Vogt.
The ssp. rondoui Vogt lives in the Cordillera Cantabrica and in the Pyrenees, the ssp. konradini Reinig, in the Appennino Mts. Both subspecies are specially light and colourful.
P. Rasmont