Rajmohana Keloth: The Bug Finder and Her Big World of Tiny Insects
It was nap time at the nursery school.
While the rest of her classmates were asleep, four-year-old Mohana watched an army of ants marching in a row.
Mohana gently picked up the ants in her palm, and discovered they have a distinct odour, an unpleasant one.
She often watched the praying mantis sitting on the wall, move its foreleg from side to side, waiting for its prey.
She carried green grasshoppers on the back of her palm when they accidentally hopped indoors.
On rainy days, she squatted by the swarms of termites on the floor and felt their wings with her fingertips.
She watched as their wings fell off and the insects walked away, untroubled.
Mohana longed to become a scientist who studies insects.
Years later, she studied zoology, joined the Zoological Survey of India and became an entomologist pursuing taxonomy.
An entomologist studies insects. Some entomologists study insect taxonomy. They identify and organise different species of insects by shape, by size, by pattern and even the way they develop over time.
Mohana’s job took her to the deepest jungles.
No one had seen women travel to far-flung remote areas for forest surveys, but Mohana had become an entomologist to discover unusual species of insects.
On her first forest survey, she wore flimsy shoes, which gave way, and she had to walk through the forest, barefoot. This taught her never to step out without a pair of good field shoes.
It was twilight in the Wayanad hills when Mohana saw a banyan tree sparkling as though lit up by stars. As she tiptoed near it, she spotted thousands of fireflies.
Deep in the Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary in Kannur, she came across a resting population of migrating milkweed butterflies. There were also thousands of blue tiger butterflies on low branches of a tree.
Sensing movement, all the butterflies set to flight as one, as Mohana gasped in wonder.
Mohana’s work drove her to study the tiny wasps that belonged to the Hymenoptera insect family.
The wasps were so minuscule that they couldn’t be identified without a microscope, but they played an important role in maintaining balance in the ecosystem.
She studied their habits,
published research papers on them and discovered over 150 new species.
Mohana even had a species named after her, Dipara mohanae.
From wasps to termites, the more species Mohana found, the more she wanted to discover.
Insects are pollinators, pests, soil engineers and more — they influence human lives in many ways.
Being an entomologist, Rajmohana Keloth knows and appreciates this every day.
Get to know Mohana May 9, 1971: Rajmohana Keloth’s birthday. 1975: Mohana’s first memory of observing insects. 1993: Mohana completes her post graduation in zoology specialising as an entomologist. 1994: She gets her dream job and joins the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) as a junior research fellow. 1996: Discovers four unknown species of insects and has her first new species publication. 1999: Gets her PhD degree and joins postdoctoral research. 2004: Rejoins the Zoological Survey of India as a scientist and has worked there ever since.
Mohana’s favourite bugs Nasute termite soldier Click beetle Bumblebee Stream glory damselfly Antlion Clearwing moth