The outcome of the Expert's meeting was to assess the status of faunal diversity in the Thar deserts, gaps in research and the future lines of work for creating a data base. Every chapter provides a complete account of species occurrence, their status and gaps in research. Future lines of research have been high lighted. Realising the rapid deterioration of the quality of the environment, the issues of species loss, reduction in the number of genes and genotypes in the agriculturally important species etc. has aroused great apprehension. During the meeting it was urged, all the countries should take every reasonable measure for long term conservation of the biological resources within their jurisdiction and list all the biological species occurring in a country to claim intellectual property rights over them. Contents: 1. The Thar Desert Ecosystem – A.K. Ghosh 2. Protozoa in the Thar Desert – A.K. Das 3. Geographical Diversification of Human Plasmodia and Malaria syndrome in the Thar desert – B.K. Tyagi and R.C. Chaudhary 4.Freshwater Sponges in the Thar Desert – M.M. Sexena 5. Platyhelminthes and Acanthocephala of the Thar Desert – M. Hafeezullah 6. Faunal diversity of Nematoda in the Thar desert : Assessment and futuristic Approack – Qaiser H. Baqri 7. Annelid Diversity in the Thar desert – J.M. Julka 8. Leech fauna of the Thar desert – M.M. Saxena 9. Tick (Acarina : Metastigmata) Fauna in the Thar desert – A.K. Sanyal and S.K. De 10. Soil Mite (Acarina) Fauna in the Thar desert – A.K. Sanyal 11. Acarine Fauna in the Thar desert – S.K. Gupta 12. The Crustacean fauna of the Thar Desert – Tusharendu Roy 13. Branchiopod crustacea of Rajasthan desert – Krishna Kant Tiwari 14. Insect diversity in the Thar desert – S.K. Tandon 15. Odonata in the Thar desert - M. Prasad 16. Drylloid fauna of Thar desert – R.N. Bhargava 17. Species richness of Orthoptera and Coleoptera in the Thar desert – D.R. Parihar 18. Dictyoptera of the Thar desert – Padma Bohra and N.S. Rathore 19. Termites (Isoptera) of the Thar desert 20. Scale insects and Mealybugs in the Indian Thar desert – R.K. Varshney 21. Faunal diversity in Hemiptera of the Thar desert – L.K. Ghosh, b. Biswas and M. Ghosh 22. Insect Pests in Indira Gandhi Canal region of the Thar desert – H.K. Vyas 23. Stored grain pests in the Thar desert – Satya Vir 24. Aquatic Beetles of Thar desert – Neena Tak 25. Chronological and spatical distribution of Anopheline vectors of Malaria in the Thar desert – B.K. Tyagi 26. Diptera fauna of the Thar desert – Sanjeev Kumar and Seema Kumar 27. Lepidopteran Fauna of the Thar desert – R.K. Varshney and I.J. Gupta 28. Ant (Formicidae) fauna of the Thar desert – Neena Tak and N.S. Rathore 29. Molluscs in the Thar desert – N.V. Subha Rao 30. Fish diversity in the Thar desert – G.M. Yazdani 31. Herpetology of the Thar desert – R.C. Sharma 32. Changing Avifauna of the Thar desert – Asad R. Rahmani 33. Avian Diversity in the Thar desert – B.D. Rana, A.P. Jain and R.S. Tripathi 34. Some notes on Birds of Rann of Kutch – Himmatsinhji 35. The manual Diversity of the Indian desert – J.R.B. Alfred and V.C. Agarwal 36. Bats in Indian Thar desert – Y.P. Sinha 37. City dwelling Rhesus and Langurs – Reena Mathur 38.Jodhpur Langurs : Ecobehavioural diversity and survival strategies – S.M. Mohnot and Arun Sriwastava 39. Carnivores in the Thar desert – P.L. Kankane 40. Impact of ecological transformation on the Rodent Fauna of the Thar desert – A.P. Jain, R.S. Tripathi and B.D. Rana 41. Avenues of faunal research in the Thar desert – Ishwar Prakash