Critical reflections on German Red Lists of endangered myriapod species (Chilopoda, Diplopoda) (with species list for Germany)

The Red Lists of endangered species published by the German Bundesamt fur Naturschutz (BfN the Federal Agency of Nature Conservation) are essential tools for the nature protection in Germany since the 1970s. Although many groups of insects appear in the German Red Lists, small and inconspicuous soil organisms, among them millipedes and centipedes, have in the past been ignored. In the last few years great efforts have been made to assess these two groups, resulting in Red Lists of German Myriapoda. However, difficulties were encountered in strictly applying the Red List classification criteria to myriapods. Here we discuss those problems and some sources of error. A species list of all German Diplopoda and Chilopoda including Red List status and frequency of occurrence is provided in an Appendix.