First record of dwarf pill-millipede in Western Germany

The Quirrenbach, a forest site at the eastern edge of the Siebengebirge nature region in the southern part of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is covered by an alluvial forest with slopes upwards towards a street. From 2011 to 2017 the site was subject to yearly spring excursions by the arthropod class taught at the Museum Koenig, Bonn, where myriapods were hand-collected and soil samples were extracted via the Berlese method. The site yielded specimens of all classes of the Myriapoda: Symphyla, Pauropoda, Chilopoda and Diplopoda, with one species of Pauropoda, 16 species of Chilopoda and 15 species of Diplopoda being determined to species-level in 2017. In addition to the presence of the pauropod Trachypauropus cordatus (Scheller, 1974) in the state, the mainly parthenogenetic dwarf pill millipede Geoglomeris subterranea Verhoeff, 1908 was recorded in Berlese samples for the first time. In Germany, less than a handful of old records of the species exist outside of southern Germany. Here we record G. subterranea for the first time from Germany's second largest and most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. Micro-CT scans were taken to illustrate the species. The small size, cryptic habits, and special collection methods needed to record Geoglomeris makes it highly likely that the species is much wider distributed than previously thought.