The papers in this special issue of ZooKeys were presented at the 16^th International Congress of Myriapodology (16ICM) held in Olomouc, the Czech Republic on July 20–25, 2014. International Congresses of Myriapodology are scientific meetings of scientists, students and enthusiastic amateurs with specific interest in millipedes, centipedes, symphylans and pauropods, as well as velvet worms. Those are organised under the auspices of the Centre International de Myriapodologie (http://www.myriapodology.org). To date, these congresses have a 46 year tradition and have taken place in 13 countries:

1ICM: 1968 – Paris, France

2ICM: 1972 – Manchester, UK

3ICM: 1975 – Hamburg, Germany

4ICM: 1978 – Gargnano, Italy

5ICM: 1981 – Radford, USA

6ICM: 1984 – Amsterdam, The Netherlands

7ICM: 1987 – Vittorio Veneto, Italy

8ICM: 1990 – Innsbruck, Austria

9ICM: 1993 – Paris, France

10ICM: 1996 – Copenhagen, Denmark

11ICM: 1999 – Bialowieza, Poland

12ICM: 2002 – Mtunzini, South Africa

13ICM: 2005 – Bergen, Norway

14ICM: 2008 – Görlitz, Germany

15ICM: 2011 – Brisbane, Australia

16ICM: 2014 – Olomouc, Czech Republic

16ICM was the first myriapodological congress to be held in the Czech Republic. The 84 participants and 18 accompanying persons came from 24 countries on five continents, making the 16th Congress a truly international and global meeting of myriapod specialists (Figs 1, 2).

Figure 1. 

Collective photo of 16ICM participants.

Figure 2. 

Legend of Fig. 1. 1 Boyan Vagalinski 2 Oliver Macek 3 Lucio Bonato 4 Hsueh-Wen Chang 5 Norman Lindner 6 Laura Del Latte 7 Irina Semenyuk 8 Michaela Bodner 9 Fieng-Lan Sun 10 Chao-chun Chen 11 Piyatida Pimvichai 12 Warut Siriwut 13 Natdanai Likhitrakarn 14 Małgorzata Leśniewska 15 Jolanta Wytwer 16 Michaela Kratochvílová 17 Christian Kronmüller 18 Cuong Huynh 19 Nattarin Wongthamwanich 20 João Paulo Pena-Barbosa 21 Julian Bueno-Villegas 22 Varpu Vahtera 23 Peter Decker 24 Barbara Jäschke 25 Julia Nefedieva 26 Roghaieh Zarei 27 Leszek Jendryszik 28 Ivan H. Tuf 29 Karel Tajovský 30 Sergei Ilyich Golovatch 31 Günther Raspotnig 32 Hans S. Reip 33 Darina Bachvarova 34 Elena Valentinovna Mikhaljova 35 Michalina Kszuk-Jendrysik 36 Pavel Stoev 37 Somsak Panha 38 Nesrine Akkari 39 Pavel Nefediev 40 Jean-Jacques Geoffroy 41 Giuseppe Fusco 42 Karin Voigtländer 43 Jean-Francois David 44 Bjarne Meidell 45 Amazonas Chagas-Jr. 46 Manoela Karam Gemael 47 Carsten H. G. Müller 48 Ivan Kos 49 Blanka Ravnjak 50 Maja Kastelic 51 Branka Vode 52 Megan Short 53 Hilke Ruhberg 54 Pavel Kocourek 55 Timotej Mock 56 Grzegorz Antoni Kania 57 John Lewis 58 Greg Edgecombe 59 Joseph Hannibal 60 Vladimír Šustr 61 Michal Rendoš 62 Andrej Mock 63 László Dányi 64 Ansgar Poloczek 65 Stylianos Simasiakis 66 Andy Sombke 67 Eivind Andreas Baste Undheim 68 Pavel Saska 69 Aleksandr Evsiukov 70 Willi Xylander 71 Bruce A. Snyder 72 Jan Philip Oeyen 73 Petr Dolejš 74 Henrik Enghoff 75 Ana Komerički 76 Markus Koch 77 Jörg Rosenberg 78 Iurii Diachkov 79 Daniela Bartel 80 Nikolaus U. Szucsich 81 Zoltán Korsós 82 Thomas Wesener 83 David Bogyo 84 Per Djursvoll.

Aleksandar Doichinov, Elisavet Georgopoulou, Eszter Lazányi, Gabriella Papastefanou and Irina Zenkova are missing.

The organisers of the 16ICM are very grateful to the Palacký University, Olomouc, which provided us a pleasant area for all scientific as well as social parts of the Congress. We also thank the Biology Centre CAS and partial support from several unnamed colleagues who allowed the participation of young students at this Congress.

Many thanks to Lyubomir Penev and the friendly staff at Pensoft Publishers for making the 16ICM papers freely available to a global online audience.