Xya pfaendleri Harz, 1970

Holuša, Jaroslav, Kočárek, Petr, Vlk, Robert & Marhoul, Pavel, 2013, Annotated checklist of the grasshoppers and crickets (Orthoptera) of the Czech Republic, Zootaxa 3616 (5), pp. 437-460 : 445

Xya pfaendleri Harz, 1970

Material examined. Moravia bor., Ostravice, valey of Řečice stream, 6.viii.1962, 1 F, R. Rozkošný leg., F. Chládek det. et coll., R. Vlk revid.

From the CR, there is only one specimen found on gravel-sand fluvial deposits of little mountain river Řečice (Ostravice village) from 1962 (Dobšík & Chládek 1975). The species is hygrophilous and ripicolous; it inhabits wet sandy banks (Kočárek et al. 2005). Such habitats occur frequently along Carpathian rivers in the Moravskoslezské Beskydy Mts., but the published locality was submerged by a reservoir (Šance-Řečice). Despite intensive surveys of gravel-sand fluvial deposits of the Ostravice and Morávka rivers, the species has not been found again (Chládek & Holuša 1992; Holuša 1995; Kočárek & Holuša 2005).

X. pfaendleri occurs in south and Central Europe (nominotypic ssp.) and southwestern Asia and Egypt (ssp. palaestinae Harz, 1971) (Kočárek et al. 2005). It is very rare in Hungary (Rácz 1998) and is endangered in Austria (Berg et al. 2005). In Slovakia, it occurs on the north edge of its distributional range, but in many areas (I–Klub Slovenských Orthopterológov 2006-2012).

The historical locality in north Moravia is outside of its continuous distributional range. It is about 160 km distant from the nearest known locality at Velké Leváre, Slovakia (Holuša & Kočárek 1999). X. pfaendleri is probally more uncommon than X. variegata . For example, X. pfaendleri has been recorded in only six while X. variegata has has been recorded in 16 of the 21 eco-regions in Romania (Iorgu et al. 2008).

Even though the species is extinct at the discussed locality, the species is evaluated as missing rather than extinct. The species is likely to have colonized some localities in southeastern Moravia because it occurs in neighboring parts of Slovakia and Austria. However, up to now, only X. variegata has been repeatedly confirmed in the CR, and it is recently known from several regions (Holuša & Vlk 2003; Marhoul unpubl., Vlk unpubl.).