Calvicornia: Coleoptera Family Silvanidae

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"The silvanids are small flat beetles belonging to the family Silvanidae of the Order Coleoptera. A large number of them occur under the bark of (fallen of felled) trees and it is due to this habitat that they derive the name ‘flat bark beetles’. Quite a few of them live in haystacks, many species infest stored grains and other products of vegetable origin, while some may be saprobinots or anthophilous. Silvanids as such form a group of economically important beetles under Coleoptera. So far no Fauna of British India volume or a comprehensive treatise on the Indian Silvanidae has been published though they occur abundantly in India. ‘Coleopteres de la Indienne’ and ‘Notes sur les Silvanini” incorporating Indian silvanids were compiled by A. Grouvelle as early as in 1908 and 1912 respectively. Subsequent work on Silvanids from Indian region remained scattered in research papers. In the present treatise, Drs. T. Sengupta and T.K. Pal have provided a comprehensive account of Andaman and Nicobar islands, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka. Incidentally, from 1980 till-date, no Silvanid has been reported from these countries to warrant their inclusion in the present volume. This volume of Fauna of India deals with the habitat, systematics, bionomics, distribution and phylogeny of Silvanids occurring in India and adjoining countries. The authors have dealt with adults and larvae separately. The taxonomic account of adults comprises 4 subfamilies, 14 genera and 69 species including new ones and new records, while that of larvae deals with 11 species under 10 genera and 4 subfamilies. The strength of the work lies in its utility and easy to use keys which would help to distinguish each taxon. It is expected that the present volume will serve as an excellent aid to the future workers in Silvanids taxonomy in the region."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tapan Sengupta

Tapan Sengupta hails from Chaibasa, a small hilly town in Chhotanagpur plateau. A graduate from Calcutta University, he did his master from Patna University and Ph.D. from Glasgow University, UK. He worked with the late Dr. R.A. Crowson for four years, 1964-1968 and continued his postdoctoral research at the University of Alberta, Canada. During 1964-1977, he visited and worked in several museums and universities in the UK, Europe, USA, Canada & Japan. In 1983 he was one of 10 invitee speakers from 6 nations for the "LeConte Symposium" on the 'Classification and phylogeny of Coleoptera' at Detroit and Columbus, USA. Sengupta worked at the Zoological Survey of India for 21 years as In-Charge, Coleoptera Section, Insect Division and retired as Deputy Director. A widely traveled person, he carried out extensive surveys across India. He met, discussed and exchanged views with many established biologists and naturalists of the time, and with whom he corresponded for several years. This helped him in completing this book. Sengupta has to his credit over 100 scientific papers, including several world review of higher taxa, handbooks, monographs and one volume of fauna in the insect series. He also guided researches on wetland fauna, sotred-grain pests and ecological studies on soil fauna of the tea gardens, agriculture fields and forest floor.