Mithan Lal Roonwal, Indian entomologist and primatologist (Jodhpur, Rajasthan State 18 September 1908 – Jodhpur, Rajasthan State 22 July 1990)

Authored about 400 works

Proposed Roonwal hypothesis on prediction of desert locust swarms (1946)

On a new evolutionary phenomenon: the sharp increase of intraspecific variation in minimum populations, as evidenced by desert locus. Rec. Indian Mus. 51(4):481-525, 1953

Population dynamics and evolutionary problems in the desert locust with a new theory on gregarization. J. Zool. Soc. India 9(1):72-96, 1957

Showed the taxonomic value of micro-sculpturing on the wings of the various families of the Isoptera (1973)

With S.C. Verma & M.L. Thakur. On a new systematic character in termites, the micrasters. Zeitschr. Zool. System. Evol. 12(1):55-76, 1974

On a new phylogenetically significant ratio (width/length) in termite eggs (Isoptera). Zool. Anz. 195(1-2):43-50, 1975

First to note geographic patterns in the shape in which gray langurs carried their tails (1979)

Described the genus Indotermes 1960 with Sen-Sarma and about 60 especies in Isoptera

Described the mammalian subspecies Rattus rattus bullocki 1984 and co-described the amphibian species Chirixalus cherrapunjiae 1966 with Kripalani 

HONORS

Roonwalitermes Bose 1997 (Isoptera)