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{{short description|Indian specialist on butterflies (born 1946)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2019}}
{{Use Indian English|date=December 2019}}
'''Harish (Honnayya) S. Gaonkar''' (born 1946) is an [[India]]n specialist on [[butterflies]] who contributed to the Zoological Museum at the [[University of Copenhagen]], [[Denmark]] and wrote a 1996 compilation of butterflies of [[Western Ghats]], [[South India]] cataloguing 330 species.<ref>Parag Rangnekar, Omkar Dharwadkar, [http://threatenedtaxa.org/ZooPrintJournal/2009/May/o214026v09298-299.pdf "Three additions to the known butterfly (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera and Grypocera) fauna of Goa, India"], Journal of Threatened Taxa, May 2009, 1(5): 298-299 299</ref><ref>[http://www.extension.iastate.edu/newsrel/2003/nov03/nov0325.html Asian Mormon Butterflies ]</ref><ref>[http://www.hinduonnet.com/lf/2003/04/02/stories/2003040201130200.htm The Hindu : Butterfly paradise ]</ref> Gaonkar was born in [[Karwar, Karnataka|Karwar district]], India.{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}} Gaonkar earned his PhD from the [[University of California, Berkeley]].{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}}

Born and raised in [[Bankikodla-Hanehalli|Hanehalli]], Gaonkar completed his high school from [[Anandashram High School, Bankikodla]] in 1962 {{Citation needed|date=September 2017}}. In 2001 Gaonkar was a scientific associate of the [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]] in London.<ref>[http://pets.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/ButterflyIndia/messages/200?xm=1&m=e&l=1 Butterfly India]</ref> In the 2004 "Global Butterfly Names" proposal to the ECAT programme of GBIF submitted by J. Mallet, professor of biological diversity, University College London, concerning a major collaboration between developed and developing countries backed by the Natural History Museum, London, to provide an open, online, complete and up-to-date database of the about 80,000 names applied to about 17,500 butterfly species Gaonkar was described as one of the named NHM staff members, postdoctoral students and scientific associates "with leading skills in butterfly taxonomy" identified as "representing a critical mass of professional expertise unmatched elsewhere".<ref>[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/taxome/GBIF_Butterfly_Names.pdf Butterfly name]</ref>

He is cited as the source of the list of butterflies endemic to Sri Lanka at Michael and Nancy van der Poorten's website "Butterflies & Dragonflies of Sri Lanka" in a personal communication of information from a work "The Atlas of the Butterflies of the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka", Natural History Museum, London, apparently still in preparation in August 2009.<ref>[http://www.srilankaninsects.net/Butterflies/MainPage/ButterfliesMain.htm Butterflies] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091126062805/http://srilankaninsects.net/Butterflies/MainPage/ButterfliesMain.htm |date=2009-11-26 }}</ref> Gaonkar is frequently cited explaining the origin of the name of the Asian Mormon swallowtail butterflies. He wrote that "the origins of giving common English names to organisms, particularly butterflies for tropical species started in India around the mid 19th century. The naming of [[Papilio|Mormons]] evolved slowly. I think the first to get such a name was the [[Common Mormon]] (''Papilio polytes''), because it had three different females, a fact that could only have been observed in the field, and this they did in India. The name obviously reflected the ... [[Mormons|Mormon sect]] in America, which as we know, practiced [[polygamy]]."<ref>[http://www.extension.iastate.edu/newsrel/2003/nov03/nov0325.html News Release]</ref>

==Selected books and publications==
* Gaonkar, H. (1995) ''An Annotated Bibliography of the Butterflies of the Indian Region Including Pakistan India Nepal Bangladesh Bhutan Sri Lanka and North Burma'' {{OCLC|488215574}}<ref>[http://www.zmuc.dk/commonweb/5yrs/3publ_ex.htm ZMUC commonweb]</ref>
* Gaonkar, Harish (1996) ''Butterflies of the [[Western Ghats]], India (including [[Sri Lanka]]) - A [[Biodiversity]] Assessment of a Threatened Mountain System''. A report submitted to the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Bangalore, India, 86 pp
* O. Yata, H. Gaonkar, "A New Subspecies of ''[[Eurema andersonii]]'' ([[Lepidoptera]]: [[Pieridae]]) from South India", ''Entomological Science'', 1999 - ci.nii.ac.jp
* Vane-Wright, Richard I. and Gaonkar, Harish, Department of Entomology, [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]], London. "The ''[[Arhopala]]'' butterflies described by [[Johan Christian Fabricius|Fabricius]]: ''[[Arhopala centaurus|A. centaurus]]'' is from Java, ''[[Arhopala democritus|A. democritus]]'' from Phuket (Lepidoptera: [[Lycaenidae]])", ''Entomological Science'', Volume 9 Issue 3, Pages 295 - 311, Published Online: 27 September 2006, [https://web.archive.org/web/20061013180815/http://www.frienvis.nic.in/Forgien-2006/E/entomologicalscience.htm link]

==See also==
* ''[[Papilio liomedon]]''
* [[Pieridae]]
* [[Pieris rapae|Small white]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaonkar, Harish}}
[[Category:Indian lepidopterists]]
[[Category:Indian entomologists]]
[[Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni]]
[[Category:Kannada people]]
[[Category:1946 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:People from Uttara Kannada]]
[[Category:Scientists from Karnataka]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian zoologists]]

Harish Gaonkar - Revision history

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