Marks caused by the scavenging activity of Necrobia rufipes (Coleoptera: Cleridae) under laboratory conditions

Crime scene and body alterations caused by arthropods: implications in death investigation

“…Among these, 7 were case reports [13][14][15][16][17][18][19], 3 case series [6,20,21], 19 original articles [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40], 4 were technical notes [41][42][43][44] and 8 were reviews [1,10,[45][46][47][48][49][50].…”

“…Dermestidae, Tenebrionidae, Scarabaeoidea), moths (Tineidae), wasps (Halictidae, Sphaecidae) and termites (i.e. Termitidae, Mastotermitidae, Rhinotermitidae) [31], as observed upon human remains in archaeological contexts [40].…”

“…Beetles cause alterations that can be confused with lesions that could actually cause the victim's death [40]. It has been observed that beetles may cause depressed areas and destruction on wounds, with bites on the edges of the wounds.…”

“…As an alternative, insects can be frozen and later prepared as requested by the specialists. Furthermore, in the absence of living arthropods, the presence of faecal pellets, frass and exuviae has to be documented since they could be used as an indicator of the previous arthropods' presence [40], and in case of frass, it can also be used as a substratum for toxicological analyses (Fig. 6).…”

First record of Necrobia rufipes (De Geer, 1775) (Coleoptera: Cleridae) from Khuzestan Province, southwest of Iran, a beetle species of forensic importance

“…The legs are unique (tarsal formula is 5-5-5) and front coxae exposes the second segment of the legs known as the trochanter [7]. The Cleridae family are predators of insects that live in animal excrement, carrion and vegetable material [8,9]. Hence, they have been indicated to be important in certain criminal investigations [10].…”