Book review

摘要

China is a country with an exceptionally high diversity of insects and other groups of organisms. There are over 90 000 insect species recorded and the type specimens of about 30 000 of them are deposited in collections in the country. In the age of a drastic biodiversity crisis, which also threatens the fauna of China, the documentation of the present diversity must have high priority and cataloguing the type material is one very important aspect. It is very laudable that a crucial part of this laborious task was taken over by scientists of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a leading research institution in this country.