The Department of Zoology, a pioneer department in the field of entomology, was founded in 1963 as a centre of Kerala University and became a department of Calicut University in 1968. Since its establishment the department has proved its potential in active Research, teaching, and extension programmes by attracting research grants from various national funding agencies like UGC, DBT, DST, MoEF, KSCSTE etc. The Department of Zoology has been recognized for special assistance program by the University Grant Commission (UGC-SAP) in 2012. The Department proved its capabilities contributing to the advancements in taxonomic and systematic practices using Geometric morphometrics (GMM) for documenting shape information of the organisms as one of the key traits for developmental and evolutionary analytical studies. Recently the department has been elevated as Centre of Potential Excellence Scheme (SPG) with funding from Govt. of Kerala. The department offers M.Sc., M. Phil and Ph.D. programmes. The major research areas of the department are Acarology, Biochemistry, Biopesticides, Biosphere Ecology, Biotechnology, Entomology, Endocrinology, Regeneration Biology, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Ornithology and Toxicology.

The Entomological Museum in the department is an invaluable resource for researchers, students, and naturalists. The museum exhibits an array of extremely important collections, with specimens representing many of the species of insects in the geographic location.