Indian Insects: Diversity and Science: A Festschrift for Professor C. A. Viraktamath's 75th Birthday

Insects are the most interesting and diverse group of organisms on earth, many of which are useful as pollinators of crops and wild plants while others are useful as natural enemies keeping pestiferous insects in check. It is important to conserve these insects for our survival and for this the diversity of insect species inhabiting the different ecosystems of our country must be known. The cornerstone to studies of any kind of organismal diversity is their taxonomic identity. Even after over two and half centuries of studies, so little is known of the insect wealth of our country. It has contributions from taxonomists who have been studying Indian insects for long, this book offers up to date information on many important groups of Indian insects seeking to fill the lacuna of a long felt need for a comprehensive work on the taxonomy of Indian insects.

Salient features:

• Provides an up-to-date taxonomy of major insect groups of India
• Presents identification keys with illustrations of several important groups of Indian insects
• Gives a new insight into why insects are so abundant
• Addresses fundamental questions in mechanoreception and cross kingdom interactions using insects as model systems

Indian Insects: Diversity and Science is a festschrift to Professor C. A. Viraktamath, an insect taxonomist par excellence. It has been designed to cater to the needs of academicians, researchers and students who wish to identify insects collected from local environments and will be an invaluable aid for those working in the areas of systematics, ecology, behaviour, diversity and the conservation of insects.

Dr. S. Ramani

S. Ramani joined the Agricultural Research Service of the ICAR, New Delhi in 1985 and after serving in different ICAR institutes retired as Project Coordinator, ICAR-AICRP on Honey Bees & Pollinators in 2011. His areas of specialisation are pollination, biological control and taxonomy. He has published more than 45 papers in peer reviewed journals and several popular articles on insects. His special area of interest is taxonomy of Tephritidae. He collects stamps on insects as a hobby.

Dr. Prashanth Mohanraj

Prashanth Mohanraj retired as a Principal Scientist from the ICAR-National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources, Bengaluru in 2017. He joined the Agricultural Research Service of ICAR and worked at the ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands for 14 years. He co-authored a book ‘Butterflies of Andaman & Nicobar Islands’, the Hindi translation of which won the best book award from the ICAR. His areas of specialisation are biological control, natural history of insects and taxonomy. He has specialised on the taxonomy of Trichogrammatidae. He has published over 65 research papers in peer reviewed journals and more than a dozen popular articles on insects.

Dr. H. M. Yeshwanth

H. M. Yeshwanth is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Entomology at University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru. His research interests are in the area of taxonomy, biodiversity and natural history of insects. His special area of interest is taxonomy of Hemiptera, especially Miridae, and he has described about 25 new species of mirid bugs. He visited The Natural History Museum, London and studied the type specimens of Indian mirids. His collaborators include several mirid taxonomists from many parts of the world. He has published over a dozen papers in highly rated international journals. He has developed excellent techniques for photographing insects both in nature and from museum specimens.