B. K. Tikader


Benoy Krishna Tikader was an Indian arachnologist and zoologist and a leading expert on Indian spiders in his time. He worked in the Zoological Survey of India and published the Handbook of Indian Spiders in 1987. The book describes 40 families and 1066 species of India, many of which were described by Tikader himself. The handbook is a guide to all arachnids including scorpions, and not just spiders. He was also a popular scientific author in his native language of Bengali, and was the author of Banglar Makorsha for the layman.

Focus on eastern India

Working in the Zoological Survey of India based in Kolkata, Tikader was especially interested in the spiders of eastern India and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Many of his nomenclatures thus bear names of places in eastern India as part of their specific scientific name - like andamanensis, bengalensis (from the region of Bengal, and dhakuriensis (from the neighbourhood of Dhakuria, in Kolkata, often based on the region of discovery or distribution.

Honours

He held PhD and DSc degrees from Calcutta University. A number of species were named after him by his colleagues:
Fish:
Spiders: