Callimoxys gracilis, a species widely distributed from South of Central Europe via Balcan peninsula and Turkey to Near East, Transcaucasia and Iran, has been described from Peloponnese (Greece) as Stenopterus gracilis by Auguste Gaspard Brullé in 1832 [▽]. C. gracilis, a very rare and local species in Central Europe occuring only in Hungary and South Slovakia, inhabits xerothermic open localities (forest steppes, abandoned orchards and gardens, oak forest edges etc.). Larval development in dry branches of dead shrubs and deciduous trees (Paliurus, Prunus, Acer, Prunus, Quercus etc.), the biology is generally similar to the genus Callimus. Adults, active from late April to July, are diurnal and can be beaten from blossoming shrubs (e.g. Crataegus, Swida, Paliurus spina-christi) [✱].

Body length:	7 - 13 mm
Life cycle:	1 - 2 years
Adults in:	April - June
Host plant:	polyphagous in deciduous trees (Paliurus, Prunus, Acer, Prunus, Quercus etc.)
Distribution:	Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Turkmenistan

The mounted female beetle was collected in forests in Asfaltovaya Gora (Асфальтовая Гора) village environs (Goryachy Klyuch district, Krasnodar krai, Southern federal district, Russia) on May 21, 2012. Living beetles were photographed in Hungary.

Collected by Maxim E. Smirnov, Nikola Rahmé and Tamás Németh

---

[▽]
Brullé A.G.:
Expédition scientifique de Morée. Section des Sciences Physiques. Tome III. - 1.re Partie. Zoologie. Deuxième Section. - Des animaux articulés.
F. G. Levrault, Paris 3 (1/2): 400pp [pages 289-400 issued in 1833; plates in 1832-1836], 1832. [download ]

[✱]
Sláma M.E.F.:
Tesaříkovití – Cerambycidae České republiky a Slovenské republiky / Cerambycidae of the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.
Milan Sláma private printing, Krhanice, 383pp [pages 112-113], 1998 [ISBN: 80-238-2627-1]. [download ]