Over 500 new species of insects identified in last eight years

More than 500 new species of insects have been identified and 10,000 visuals on insect pests documented for the development of multi-media in the last eight years, a top official of the Network Project on Insect Biosystematics said today.
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research-sponsored scheme was initiated during 2005 and substantial progress has been achieved so far, National Coordinator V V Ramamurthy said at the two-day annual review meeting of the project at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University here.
The project has yielded comprehensive information on the availability of diverse nature of insect species, which will be useful for designing strategies for insect pest management in field crops, Ramamurthy said.

University Vice-Chancellor K Ramasamy said the project has identified some insects which were even present in the endangered list.