Study on food consumption by blow fly maggots and their percent adult emergence under laboratory conditions

Abstract

Blow flies plays an important role in decomposition process and consume the maximum carrion. To study the food consumption by blow fly larvae and percent adult emergence, the present research works was carried out at Entomology research laboratory, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar during the year 2015. In 1 st experiment, two rabbits were killed by intra cardiac injection of 10cc magnesium sulphate per rabbit and one each was placed in sunny and shaded areas. In 2 nd Experiment, one rabbit was killed by intra cardiac injection of magnesium sulphate while one rabbit was slaughtered with a sharp knife. Blowfly maggots were collected from the rabbit carrion with the help of forceps and were brought to the laboratory for rearing on cow meat at 25 ± 2 ºC and RH 65 ± 10% to get the adult blowfly. Meat consumption was calculated by exposing 30 grams meat slice to 10 actively feeding larvae. The meat consumption per larvae was recorded highest (1.95 gram) in larvae collected from slaughtered rabbit and lowest (1.91 gram) in larva collected from the rabbit killed by injection. Furthermore, results revealed that the meat consumption per larva and percent adult emergence appeared to be similar in both sunny and shaded areas while the rabbit killed by injection yielded higher percent adult emergence (88.97%) in comparison to slaughtered rabbit with (83.39%) emergence.