The Pauropoda (Arthropoda, Myriapoda) collection in the Natural History Museum Vienna, with notes on Acopauropus attemsi Hasenhütl, 1986

Recently, we had the opportunity to re-explore the collection of Pauropoda housed in the Natural History Museum Vienna (NHMW), restudy the specimens of the different taxa and catalogue their diversity. To achieve this, several historical specimens are transferred from ethanol into permanent slides mounted in Polyvinyl-Lactophenol, re-identified and, for the first time, databased and digitised in line with the extended specimen concept. Permanent slides in other media like Canada balsam or Swan medium, already present in the collection, were also restudied. All specimens and corresponding metadata were newly marked with persistent identifiers. Two morphologically very similar species, of which the holotypes are housed at the NHMW, were reanalysed using an integrative approach. Acopauropus hastatus Attems, 1895 was collected over 130 years ago, while Acopauropus attemsi Hasenhütl, 1986 was described much later based on recently collected samples and those discovered among the type specimens of A. hastatus housed in the NHMW. Despite subtle differences in tergal structures, sequencing of DNA barcodes based on the standard fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I gene (COI) shows a genetic distance of 19%, which supports the morphology-based hypothesis of two separate taxa. A catalogue of all Pauropoda housed in the NHMW is here presented. Species are listed taxonomically in an alphabetical order under their currently accepted names. Revision of species identifications of the historical material revealed eight overlooked taxa and allowed to update the nomenclature of other taxa. At present, the collection of the NHMW houses a total of 105 slide preparations including 21 historical ones and 84 newly prepared by Klaus Hasenhütl (KH), in addition to and 19 remaining lots. These correspond to 20 species and one subspecies classified in eight genera and three families. The importance of natural history collections for biodiversity and systematic research is further highlighted, with an emphasis on the use of emerging non-destructive methods to study obscure taxa.