Eyprepocnemidinae, Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893

Massa, Bruno, 2020, Annotated checklist of Orthoptera of the Maltese Islands, Zootaxa 4885 (1), pp. 107-124 : 116

Subfamily: Eyprepocnemidinae

Eyprepocnemis plorans plorans (Charpentier, 1825)

Very common throughout much of the year, generally within a broad range of wetland habitats, as also in mesic environments.

Distribution. Mediterranean as well as in parts of the Afrotropical and Middle Eastern regions.

Heteracris adspersa (Redtenbacher, 1889)

A highly localized species, known from a single coastal locality, Salina, where numbers tend to fluctuate noticeably from year to year. Although it occurs within a Natura 2000 site, the area on which the population thrives is quite small and is subject to seasonal flooding by freshwater run-off. Such circumstances make the population all the more vulnerable. H. adspersa features on the IUCN Red List and is considered ‘Vulnerable’ with a ‘decreasing population trend’ ( Hochkirch et al. 2016).

Distribution. H. a. adspersa is common in parts of the Afrotropical, Middle Eastern and Eastern Palaearctic regions. H. adspersa massai Galvagni, 1978 occurs in Sardinia and Sicily; it is likely that the taxon that occurs in Malta and North Africa belongs to this subspecies.