Accurate estimation of post mortem interval (PMI) can be crucial to the successful investigation of suspicious death. The forensic indicator blowflies are essential for accuracy in estimation of PMI. The Calliphoridae species Chrysomya megacephala and Chrysomya rufifacies were reared in laboratory condition for studying their time duration of different stages under the fluctuating temperature in three different seasons (i.e. rainy season, winter season and summer season).In laboratory, at the fluctuating temperature during rainy season, winter season and summer season, Chrysomya megacephala took 237 hours 47 minutes, 263 hours 51 minutes and 211 hours 13 minutes respectively. Whereas the Chrysomya rufifacies took 239 hours 14 minutes, 286 hours 02 minutes and 216 hours 26 minutes during rainy season, winter season and summer season respectively. This study shows that forensic investigators will have to take each of these variables into consideration from the development of insects in order to give a more accurate estimate of PMI.

No abstract

Lucilia cuprina is one of the forensically important Calliphoridae fly. L. cuprina is a helpful resource at the crime scenes as well as a nuisance to sheep. It is known to be one of the first flies to occupy a corpse upon its death. Due to this, it has great importance in forensic field to find out post-mortem interval. In this study, the development of L. cuprina is studied in an incubator at different constant temperatures. Larvae of the L. cuprina were reared in an incubator at 20 º C, 25 º C, 30 º C, 35 º C, and 40 º C. During study the developmental data, temperature and relative humidity of the rearing room as well as weight, length of the larvae were recorded from the time the larvae were collected until the adult flies emerge out.Results obtained show that development of the L. cuprina was slow at lower temperature. At the high temperature, developmental rate was fast. At low temperature L. cuprina attained greatest body weight whereas at high temperature there was a decrease in the weight. When flies were reared at 40 º C the development of the fly was much more rapid but slight mortality was observed. Above study shows that temperature plays a very important role in the development of L. cuprina. For the correct estimation of post-mortem interval this study is very useful, because each dipteran fly has its own developmental period with respect to temperature and region.

Sarcophagid flies belonging to carrion insect communities provide the information about the corps. Parasarcophaga dux (Thomson) (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) collected from Latur district of Maharashtra (India) has been studied for the duration of different life cycle stages in three different seasons i.e. rainy, winter and summer seasons under the room temperature. The female released I st instar larvae which after two larval mounts undergo prepupation and then pupation in the soil. The adult emerged out from pupae. During rainy season the life cycle duration from larvaeposite to emergence of adult was 315.15 ± 3.28 hrs, during winter season in 359.56 ± 2.44 hrs, while in summer season it took 265.51 ± 6.28 hrs, under the fluctuating diurnal temperature and humidity of the laboratory. The time durations of life cycle stages of P. dux in the different seasons can be used to determine the PMI using the meterological data and P. dux life cycle stages collected from the cadaver.