About the database | Citing the database
Dr John S. Noyes joined the staff of the Department of Entomology of The Natural History Museum London in 1974 to undertake research on and develop the collections of Chalcidoidea, probably the most important collection of this group in the world. Since that time he has published more than 60 taxonomic papers and books on most of the included families, with a strong emphasis on the family Encyrtidae. These works include revisions of the genera of Encyrtidae occurring in the Neotropical and Indo-Pacific regions, a revision of the Encyrtidae of New Zealand, a revision of the encyrtid tribe Anagyrini of the Indo-Pacific region, an introduction to the Chalcidoidea of New Zealand, and a generic revision of the Mymaridae of New Zealand. His research is currently centred on a comprehensive faunistic study of the Encyrtidae of Costa Rica and recently he has published a revision of the Tetracneminae of that country. He has a particular interest in the use of Chalcidoidea in biocontrol programmes worldwide and has been involved in several important programmes, especially in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.
The Chalcidoidea database has its roots in a taxonomic card catalogue compiled and maintained until about 1969 by the "indexing section" of the Department of Entomology at The Natural History Museum, London. Soon after joining the staff of the department John undertook to update and improve on this catalogue and add a comprehensive bibliography of works on the superfamily. As a result, it was soon constantly in use by other specialists in the group. The conversion of the card catalogue into an electronic database was started in August 1991 thanks to small grants provided by Tate & Lyle PLC and Unilever. The database was made available on CD in August 1998 in collaboration with ETI Amsterdam and Dicky Yu. A second, improved edition was published in 2002 in collaboration with Dicky Yu using the Taxapad© data management system designed by him (see www.taxapad.com). This version is still currently available.
Last updated 19-Aug-2003 Dr B R Pitkin