Studies on Time Duration of Life Stages of Chrysomya megacephala and Chrysomya rufifacies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) during Different Seasons

Abstract

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.

Molecular identification of a forensically relevant blowfly species (Diptera: Calliphoridae) from the Nagpur region of Maharashtra, India

“…Since different succession patterns, geographic distributions, elevations, environmental temperature, and humidity (Siddiki & Zambare 2017) can affect the composition, development, and life cycle of insect fauna, the knowledge of local entomofauna of necrophagous insects is very important in order to introduce evidence into a forensic investigation. Many studies of forensic entomology have reported the entomofauna of India (Abd-Algalil & Zambare 2017;Bharamal 2016;Bharti & Sing 2017;Jadav & Sathe 2014;Sathe et al 2013), but there is a paucity of data on the entomofauna of central India (Nagpur).…”

Quickie well done: no evidence of physiological costs in the development race ofLucilia sericatanecrophagous larvae

“…the dung beetle Onthophagus lecontei (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) (Arellano et al ., )], which is exposed to similar predation pressures but under different environmental conditions, as well as other necrophagous insects that colonize cadavers later in succession [i.e. oriental latrine flies such as Chrysomya megacephala (Diptera: Calliphoridae) (Siddiki and Zambare, ) and black soldier flies such as Hermetia illucens (Stratiomyidae) (Nguyen et al ., )]. Note that, for the black soldier fly, mean values of individuals reared on liver are listed.…”