This species is endemic to the eastern part of the Great Caucasus along the borders of Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan between 800 and 4,000 m asl. Its range begins around the headwaters of the Baksan river east of Mount Elbrus (about 43ºN, 43ºE) and stretches for some 600 km eastward along both slopes of the Greater Caucasus to Babadagh mountain (41ºN, 48ºE) (Kuliyev, 1981; Tsalkin, 1955). The distribution is widest (up to 70 km) in Daghestan (Magomedov, Akhmedov and Yarovenko, 2001), being most narrow in North Ossetia (ca. 12 km) (Weinberg, 2002).