A south-west Palearctic species, it occurs in southern Europe, southern parts of central Europe, and non-arid parts of southwestern Asia from Asia Minor, the Caucasus region and Palestine to Kashmir, the Altai mountains, Nepal, and parts of China. The subspecies M. b. oxygnathus occurs in Mediterranean Europe and western Anatolia: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy (including Sicily). Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine (including Krym), the Balkan Peninsula and parts of Turkey (Topál and Ruedi 2001). In the Caucasus, Turkey, Iran, the Russian Federation and Georgia it is confimed to occur no higher than 1,700 m (K. Tsytsulina, M. Sharifi and A. Karatash pers. comm. 2005). However, it is found at altitudes of up to 2,100 m in the winter in southern Spain (Palomo and Gisbert 2002).