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Gravel bank

IUCN Conservation status:

LC - Least Concern

LC - Least Concern

info
CategoriesFauna
tag Insetti Biodiversità Cavalletta

Where can you find me?

ZSC Champlas Colle del Sestriere

ZSC Valle della Ripa

Classification:

Common name: Greto Cortippo
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Orthoptera
Family: Acrididae
Genus: Chorthippus
Species: Chorthippus pullus

Habitat:

In Italy, its presence is linked to the beds of rivers and alpine streams.

The gravel pit Chorthippus (Glyptobothrus) pullus (Philippi, 1830) is a small and rare grasshopper distributed discontinuously from Central Europe to the Caucasus.

In Italy, it is mainly linked to floodplains of rivers and mountain streams in the Alps.

It is a pioneering species that colonizes habitats that are open and sunny, covered with gravel, silt and poorly vegetated such as river environments that are flooded more or less frequently, where it finds the grasses it feeds on.

It is a brachypterous species, with short wings, and therefore characterized by low mobility. The populations often have extremely fragmented distribution, occupying small areas with very low density.

It is undoubtedly one of the most threatened orthopterans with extinction in Italy and Europe. The main cause of its decline is the destruction of natural or semi-natural habitats, consisting of large riverbeds characterized by unaltered flow dynamics.

Chorthippus pullus is considered an important ecological indicator of the conservation status of riverbeds, habitats that are now extremely rare in Italy, where the species survives in very few relict areas, exclusively along the Alpine arc. In the Western Alps, it is only present in the Upper Susa Valley and the Upper Aosta Valley. A further population had been recorded in the Pellice Valley, but today it is extinct.

 

Insights:

Scientific article in the journal Journal of Orthoptera Research: Conservation challenges of the endangered gravel grasshopper Chorthippus (Glyptobothrus) pullus along Alpine rivers: Insights from remote sensing in Northwestern Italy
Luca Anselmo March 18, 2025

Scientific article Distribution, ecology, and conservation of the gravel grasshopper Chorthippus (Glyptobothrus) pullus (Philippi, 1830) (Orthoptera, Acrididae) in high Aosta Valley
Luca Anselmo December 2024

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