Homepage > Professor Io Chou - God Father of China Entomology
 
Professor Io Chou
     Chou Io is a first-class professor at Northwestern Agricultural University, an M. Phil., Ph. D. and Post Doctoral tutor, Director of the Entomological Museum, National Model Worker, Academician of the International Scientific Academy of San Marino Republic and chief adviser of Wild Protection Commission in five provinces of northwest China (Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Xinjiang). Prof. Chou devotes his life to Agricultural Entomology, Insect Morphology, Insect Taxonomy and the History of Entomology.
    During the founding of P.R.China, Professor Chou suggested and pursued the idea of comprehensive treatment and systematic engineering to prevent and control the destructive pest--Wheat-midge. Directed by this ideology, the midge’s destructive damage was successfully controlled in the major wheat areas of China. His positive result was widely accepted and promoted by the Agricultural Department of the Central Committee. In the history of control pests in China, he contributed a glorious page, and granded an “Outstanding Scientifically and Technological Achievement” and award and was recognized an“Advanced worker in Science and Technology” by the National Scientific Congress.

    In the early history of Entomology, knowledge in this field was considered primarily to originate from Aristotle, Linnaeus and Darwin, but China was never mentioned. During 1937 and 1939, professor Chou perused more than seven thousand classical sources, historical records, philosophical works, belles letters and notebooks, and revised his manuscript many times. He finally published “A History of Chinese Entomology” in 1980. As soon as the book appeared, it shocked the biological and the entomological community. It was praised as an “immortal masterpiece”. During his research, Dr. Chou realized beneficial insect rearing, the elimination of pest insects, insect taxonomy and the utilization of a natural enemy, and chemical medicaments were all explored in China by earlier several centuries than in either Europe or America. A number of monographs and textbooks have been cited in his book, which has been translated into English, Esperanto, Italian and German.
    Prof. Chou has become an authority in the field of Taxonomic Entomology because of his work.
 

    In the 1960s, Dr. Chou introduced the Evolutionary and Clostic theory of insect taxonomy in China. His theory redivided the high categories of insect taxonomy while establishing twenty-one suborders and eighteen superfamilies. His theory of recognizing the Hemoptera into five suborders has been accepted by many researchers in the world. He is adept at grasping important problems, and solving them systematically. He has devoted himself to the study of insect evolution, especially concerning Protura, Diplura, and some important categories of winged insect evolution. Other important insect groups such as Cicadoidea, Membracoidea, Cercopoidea, Cicadelloidea, Fulgoroidea, Cossoidea, Noctuidea and Drepanidea have been tirelessly research by Dr. Chou.
    During more than sixty years of study, Dr. Chou has published more than two hundred monographs and papers on Entomology and other aspects of science. He has discovered three hundred and thirty-seven new species and twenty-six new genus. As models of taxonomic description, Chou’s work exemplifies brevity, charity, and scholarship giving essential information while disregarding the extraneous. His hard work has made the knowledge of taxonomy increase quickly. He also role of a classic entomologist carrying a net and jars in his luggage wherever and whenever he travels to a location suitable for collecting specimens a habit that has enabled him to collect specimens from almost everywhere in the whole country (excluding Taiwan and Xizang). Most of the specimens in his researched were collected personally. His hard work has made a solid foundation for Chinese insect taxonomy engineering, and trained many qualified experts including M. Phil., Ph.D., and post-doctoral students for the future of China.

    Over fifty years of research work, Prof. Chou has published“The Fauna of Chinese Diaspidoidea” in 1989; a book divided into 3 volumes and including three hundred sixteen known species, of which two hundred and twelve were initially studied by himself. For its great value to agricultural production, this book gained first prize in the field of scientific and technological works.

    His book “Monographia Rhopalocerorum Sinensium”, published in 1994 is a in Chinese entomology. It stands as a great work among similar monographs in the world and won great acclaim for our country in academic circles. The book includes twelve familiae, three hundred sixty-six genus, more than one thousand eight hundred species and subspecies including eighty-five new species and subspecies, and over five thousand color photos.

    Compiling the book was a monumental work. Using an overview of opinions throughout the world, Prof. Chou has developed a classification system of the Chinese Rhopalocera, corrected many historical mistakes about butterfly names, examined all known names of Chinese butterflies, set up a method for the systematization of Chinese generic names, according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature(ICZN). Using ICZN, all generic names are given corresponding Chinese names, and this work has laid a foundation for the unity and systematization of Chinese butterfly names. More than fifty lepidopterists from all over China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, took part in compiling the book, which embodies professor Chou’s characters. Mr. Song Jian, a director of the Sate Scientific Committee, said:“It is a pioneering work in scientific circles”. This monograph created new interest in the study of butterflies. The Butterfly Association of Entomological Society of China was founded in 1996.

    In 1979, Professor Chou established an international journal “Entomotaxono-mia” and acted as its chief editor. Twenty-six authorities from China, UK, USA, Italy, Denmark, India and Japan formed its editorial board. In the past fifteenth years, the journal has published twice as many articles about taxonomy as all Chinese journals published science 1949 combined. He has set up a relationship of long-term exchange with three hundred kinds of entomological or zoological journals from over one hundred countries or regions. The various foreign materiel exchanged each year may save as much as twenty thousand US dollars. It can supply rich data to expert, scholar and postgraduate research requirements.

    In 1987, the first Insect Museum of China was founded at Northwestern Agricultural University using specimens collected by Professor Chou and his students from the whole country during the past fifty years. It now contains 600,000 insect specimens including five hundred types of new specimens, and twenty thousand books and periodicals in various languages. The Museum has three exhibition halls, which supply a scientific teaching area for students of primary and secondary schools. Entomologists home and abroad come here to do cooperative research. In 1996, a museum named Chou Io Entomological Museum was built in his hometown, Yin county, Zhejiang Province in honor of his many contributions to Chinese entomology.

    Having made so many great achievements in the development of Chinese entomology, Professor Chou is praised as “A Light of Asian”, “A Paragon of virtue learning”, “A Strange talent in the Entomological world”, “A person prominence in the world entomological circle” and received an Award for outstanding Contributions to Asian Agricultural in Hong Kong in 1995 and Scientific and Technological prizes of Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation in 2001.

    Professor Chou always pays attention to textbook construction. After the founding of new China, the first “General Entomology” was published as a textbook for the whole country’s Agriculture and Forestry universities and has translated into Vietnamese for use a as university’ textbook. “Illustration of Quarantine Insect”, “Atlas of Injurious Insect of Agriculture”, “Atlas Entomological Since”, “Entomological Systematic”, written by professor Chou, were all published in Chinese. The difference between his books and others is that everything in them was written and researched personally. In his articles and books, himself draws more than ninety per cent of the figures. These figures are often quoted in other books as the crystallization of science and art.

    Being a man constantly trying to solidify his colleague’s ideas, to open up new domains of science, and to encourage the younger generation of entomologists, Prof. Chou is happy to direct young teachers and to foster postgraduates. Twenty M. Phil. students and sixteen Ph.D. students have graduated under his direction. He founded the Chou Io Reward Entomological Taxonomy in 1996.

    Although Prof. Chou is more than eighty years old, his energy belies his age. Dr. Chou is modestly proud of his 60-year career as entomologist. Prof. Chou still has considerable energy and continues to work more than ten hours every day to leads his colleagues to even greater progress in their new field.
 

 

 

 
 
 

2005 college of Plant Protection