Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya (1 August 1895 – 8 April 1981) was an Indian

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

and

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

who spent most of his career at

Bose Institute Bose Institute (or Basu Bigyan Mandir) is a premier public research institute of India for biological sciences and also one of its oldest. The Bose Institute Kolkata is a Tier 1 Natural Science Research Institute in India, sharing the podium wit ...

, Kolkata. He had no formal college degree. In 1981, the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree months before he died. He was awarded the

Ananda Puraskar The Ananda Puraskar () is an award for Bengali literature awarded annually by the ABP Group to writers using Bengali language, Bengali, usually from West Bengal, India. History The award can be traced to a comment by Annada Shankar Ray ruing the ...

for Bengali literature in 1968, and the highest award for Bengali literature, the

Rabindra Puraskar The Rabindra Puraskar (also Rabindra Smriti Puraskar) is the highest honorary literary award given in the Indian state of West Bengal. This award is named after the famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and is administered by the Government of ...

, in 1975. He published his first research papers in 1932, on life events in the body of plants. Subsequently, he also published work on bioluminescence and other botany topics, but gradually his interests shifted to entomology. He became an expert photographer, and photographed many varieties of ants, spiders, small bats and tadpoles. In total, he published 22 papers in English, including in journals such as the

Natural History Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

of the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

Science popularization

In 1948 he worked with

Satyendra Nath Bose Satyendra Nath Bose (; 1 January 1894 – 4 February 1974) was an Indian theoretical physicist and mathematician. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, in developing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statist ...

(of

Bose–Einstein statistics In quantum statistics, Bose–Einstein statistics (B–E statistics) describes one of two possible ways in which a collection of non-interacting identical particles may occupy a set of available discrete energy states at thermodynamic equilibri ...

fame) to establish the '' Bangiya Bijnan Parishad'' (Bengal Science Council), a society for science research.

Scientific findings

In 1943, possibly before the fact had been established among naturalists, Gopal Chandra published an article in the ''Transactions of the Bose Institute'' of Calcutta, outlining how the

queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

social insect Eusociality (Ancient Greek, Greek 'good' and social) is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative Offspring, brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), ove ...

s such as

ant Ants are Eusociality, eusocial insects of the Family (biology), family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the Taxonomy (biology), order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from Vespoidea, vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cre ...

s or

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...

s, produces other queens, workers or soldiers, by appropriately altering the nature of the

royal jelly Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae and adult queens. It is secreted from the glands in the hypopharynx of nurse bees, and fed to all larvae in the colony, regardless of sex or caste.Graham, J. (ed.) (199 ...

fed to the

larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...

e. His observations were based on a species of ants, ''

Oecophylla smaragdina ''Oecophylla smaragdina'' (common names include Asian weaver ant, weaver ant, green ant, green tree ant, and orange gaster) is a species of tree, arboreal ant found in tropical Asia and Australia. These ants form colonies with multiple nests in ...

''.

The Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya Award

In 2005, the government of

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

instituted an award for science popularization in his name, the ''Gopal Chandra Bhattacharyya Smriti Puraskar''. In 2005, the entomologist Debashis Biswas was awarded this prize for writing several books that describe the biology of

mosquito Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...

es and malaria prevention through stories.

References

External links

Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya archives on bigyan.org.in - a popular science magazine in Bengali. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bhattacharya, Gopal Chandra Bengali scientists Indian entomologists 1895 births 1981 deaths Recipients of the Rabindra Puraskar People from Naria Upazila 20th-century Indian zoologists Scientists from West Bengal