A Checklist of the Insects of Subsaharan Africa

One of the most basic needs for inventorying, exploiting and
monitoring the changes in the insect diversity of Africa is a complete
list of species which are already know to occur in
Africa. Surprisingly, such a basic list does not exist, despite some
250 years of formal scientific description of life on earth. The
International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), along
with the National Museum of Natural History, is therefore sponsoring
the production of the list, which will provide a reliable platform of
'standard' names for species on which many other projects depend. This
list, or authority file, will greatly enhance communication both among
scientists and between scientists and users of scientific data. The
African list will also be a major contribution toward the proposed
list of world species (e.g. the Global Biodiversity Information
Facility (GBIF) and Species 2000 initiative of DIVERSITAS).

A demonstration database is provided for the species of the orders
Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), Ephemeroptera (mayflies),
Plecoptera (stoneflies), Megaloptera (alderflies),
Hemiptera-Heteroptera (true bugs), Homoptera (cicadas, leafhoppers,
planthoppers, scales, and others), and Trichoptera (caddisflies).

Invitation to collaboration: Compilation of the checklist is being
coordinated by Nearctica (formerly Entomological Information
Specialists), because of their experience with Nomina Insecta
Nearctica. We are attempting to collaborate with known specialists as
contributors and reviewers, but we welcome additional suggestions of
collaborators. Inquires can be directed to Scott Miller
([e-mail]).

Information was obtained from
"http://entomology.si.edu/".