The planners and administration involved in mosquito control operations are very much interested in classification and identification of the species of Anopheline mosquitoes. It is highly essential to identify the vector responsible for the outbreak of an epidemic, so that one can carry out systematic and need-based control operations. For this purpose normally the pictorial keys, depicting the taxonomic characteristics are utilized (Das et al 1990). In literature on such pictorial key published by Das et al (1990) is found to be quite useful. However, in many situations these monographs, which describe in detail the identification of Anopheline species, are quite difficult and time consuming for a non-taxonomist to follow. A computerized system that could be utilized for the accurate identification of an unknown species is highly desirable in such situations (Reddy et al. 1992, Murty et al 1994).

Literature survey has indicated that expert system is found to be quite useful for classification problems (Ross, 1983; Thompson et al, 1986). The present taxonomic problem identification of unknown species can be treated as a particular case of classification. With this objective, a study was under taken to develop a suitable web enabled expert system for the identification of an unknown species of Anopheline mosquitoes. The web-enabled expert system so developed is easy to handle even by a novice for the purpose of identification of an unknown mosquito species.

It would also be interesting to explore the possibility of application of these web-enabled expert systems to new areas of interest relating to taxonomic problems.