Distribution; world
Widely distributed in mainland Europe, its north-west limit being southern Fennoscandia. In these countries and in Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium it is also predominantly coastal (Crèvecoeur, 1952; Erlandsson, 1960; van der Zanden, 1982; Peeters, Raemakers & Smit, 1999). It also occurs in the Middle East and in north Africa, but specimens from these regions and Europe generally can often be difficult to determine owing to the existence there of sibling species. Banaszak & Romasenko [as M. argentata] (1998) additionally cite North America, though the species is omitted from the North American catalogue by Krombein et al. (1979):
AT, BE, BG, CH, CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, ES-BI, FR, FR-CO, GB, GR-AN, HR, HU, IT, IT-SA, IT-SI, LT, LV, MT, NL, PL, PT, RO, RS, RU, RU-EU, SE, SK, SL, UA, LY, AZ, CN, IR, GE, TR
Conservation status; world
Conservation status: CZ - RDB2 (EN), DE - RDB3 (VU), DE2 - RDB3 (VU), NL - RDB3 (VU), SE - RDB4 (NT)