Born in Coimbatore, he studied in Bellary and at the Madras Christian College under Professor Henderson who headed the department of zoology.
He taught in Coimbatore and Ernakulam, before moving to the Central College in Bangalore where he organized the department of zoology and headed it until his retirement in 1937.
In one of his first editorials, he pleaded for the coordination of scientific activities in India, a plea that helped create the Indian Academy of Sciences.
[3] Professor Rao presided over the zoology section of the Indian Science Congress in 1938 at Lahore.
His account of the ovarian ovum of the slender loris was presented to the Royal Society by James Peter Hill in the latter's Croonian Lecture.