Abstract
Arthropods collected off the corpse or at a crime scene can be used to determine the presence of toxins in a body at the death time. This study was planned and objected at examining the possible use of fly larvae as indicators for detecting rabbit poisoning with Warfarin rodenticide. For this, Warfarin was examined in blood samples of an intoxicated rabbit carcass and maggots that were collected off such remain using the High-Performance Liquid Chromatography. The blood of the intoxicated rabbit was positive. The maggots showed two different results: (1) Positive that may refer to the feeding of larvae upon the rabbit liver which retains the toxin for 90 days post-mortem and (2) Negative that may be due to that this toxin is highly degraded after 18 hours of ingestion while the maggots started to invade the carcass after 48 hours of death. The controls of both rabbit and maggots were negative. Our results confirmed the reliability of entomological specimens for qualitative analyses of the toxins.
Highlights
In Forensic entomology, Entomotoxicology is defined as the analysis of toxins in arthropods that feed on carrions
One was asphyxiated via hanging “Control” and the other was poisoned by an oral administration of Warfarin rodenticide at a rate of 50 mg per Kg “Intoxicated” following the method described by Abd El-Gawad et al (2019)
Blood Sampling of Rabbit Carcasses: By using a sterile scalpel, an incision was made in the abdominal region of the control and intoxicated rabbit carcasses and about 100 mL blood samples were taken into heparinized vacutainers
Summary
In Forensic entomology, Entomotoxicology is defined as the analysis of toxins in arthropods (mainly flies and beetles) that feed on carrions. By using arthropods off the corpse or at a crime scene, investigators can determine whether toxins were present in a body at the death time. This technique is a major advance in forensic science. Such determinations were impossible in the case of severely decomposed bodies devoid of intoxicated tissue and body fluids. The potential use of blowflies larvae as indicators for detecting toxins and drugs in decomposing carcasses have been widely demonstrated (Nolte et al, 1992). The analysis of intoxicated larvae can contribute to the qualitative identification of drugs in post-mortem tissues
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