A study of insect succession of forensic importance: Dipteran flies (diptera) in two different habitats of small rodents in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This study focused on comparing between dipteran fauna recovered from small mice (Mus musculus Linnaeus, 1758) and albino rat (Rattus norvegicus Berkenhout, 1769) carcasses placed in different habitats (a botanical garden and on a over the roof of 3rd floor of the faculty of science‘s building in the university campus). It was conducted during winter 2018 in Al-Dir'iya, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Collected specimens were identified morphologically and by molecular techniques based on the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. The number of flies recovered from the different decomposition stages of rat and mice carcasses at the two study sites was 5244, representing 11 families and 14 species. A tota nol of 4665 flies, comprising 11 families and 14 species, invaded carcasses located in the botanical garden, compared to the carcasses placed on the rooftop, which attracted 579 flies from 6 families and 9 species. The most abundant species recovered from both sites was Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann, 1830), followed by Musca domestica (Linnaeus, 1758), suggesting that these species are the most valuable for estimating Post Mortem intervals (PMIs) in this region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The data collected from this research can serve as the baseline data for homicide investigation as these flies can help determine PMI.