Introduction

This book is intended for use as a student text for courses in ‘Applied entomology’, ‘Crop pests’ and ‘Crop protection’. at both undergraduate and post-graduate level. It presupposes a basic knowledge of entomology to the level of that in Imms, A.D. (1960) A general textbook of entomology, or alternatively Borror, D.J. & D.M. Delong (1971) An introduction to the study of insects. In other words, the reader should be acquainted with the major groups of insects and their characteristics, which may mean order, suborder or superfamily in some cases, but in the more economically important orders this would mean familiarity with superfamilies or families, for example in the Hemiptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, and Diptera.