ABOUT THE AUTHOR

G.C.RAO
Retired Scientist, ZSI
Secunderabad, India
DRGCRAO@YAHOO.COM

Dr. G.C. Rao was born in 1938 in Guntur district from Andhra Pradesh. With a brilliant academic career all through his student life, he obtained Ph.D. degree from Andhra University during 1964 under the guidance of Prof. P. N. Ganapati, submitting thesis on marine interstitial fauna inhabiting the beach sands of Waltair Coast. One of the 3 examiners of his thesis, the renowned nematologist Prof. Sebastian A. Gerlach, Kiel University, complimented that the author worked on so many groups of animals which no one did in the history of zoology excepting the early periods of Aristotle and Linnaeus. Dr. Rao worked at Zoological Survey of India for over 3 decades during 1965-96 on taxonomy, ecology and distribution of meiofauna of marine sediments of the seas around India, including Lakshadweep and Andaman-Nicobar Islands. These investigations resulted in the publication of over 100 research papers on the Indian fauna. After retirement, he very much wished to bring out a comprehensive and concise publication on the astonishing morphological diversity of meiofauna inhabiting marine sediments of the seas around the world. His wish has now been fulfilled with the publication of this historical work.