An attempt was made to isolate, characterize Bacillus thuringiensis from western ghats of Uttara Kannada and evaluate their insecticidal activity against DBM. Total of 204 samples comprising of 157 soil samples, 38 leaf, 5 leaf litter and 4 compost samples were collected from western ghat regions of Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka and used for the isolation of B. thuringiensis. Out of 439 B. thuringiensis like isolates obtained, 44 were confirmed to be B. thuringiensis through crystal staining. Diverse crystal morphologies were observed among the isolates. Among the 44 isolates, 25 isolates had spherical shaped crystals, 13 with irregular type, two each cuboidal type and bipyramidal types and one with rectangular type of crystal. Isolate UK-762D had two types of crystals viz., cuboidal and bipyramidal. All the 44 isolates showed positive reaction for nitrate reduction, catalase production, Voges-Proskauer reaction and oxidase test, but all were negative for acid and gas production from glucose, arginine hydrolysis, chitinase activity and esterase activity. Thirty eight and 37 isolates were positive for starch and casein hydrolysis respectively. The bioassay studies against third instar larvae of DBM revealed that one hundred per cent mortality of larvae was recorded in the isolates UK-13C, UK-762D as well as by the reference strain HD1 after 72 hrs of treatment