Abstract
ABSTRACT Green bottle flies (Diptera, Calliphoridae, Luciliinae) comprise a diverse and cosmopolitan taxon, known from at least 1,500 species. They have become crucial elements in forensic investigations, as they spend part of their life cycle in decaying remains. Here, we review the distribution of eleven Luciliinae species in Ecuador: the monotypic Blepharicnema and ten Lucilia species. We identified specimens using morphological characters. Additionally, we DNA barcoded 43 specimens from three species using 658bp segments of the standard Cytochrome Oxidase I (COI) mitochondrial gen. Molecular and morphological identifications presented high correspondence, suggesting COI barcodes are an efficient tool for the identification of these three green bottle flies species. Geographical records are biased towards the northern Andean region, particularly near to large urban settlements. We remark the value to applied forensic research of continuous sampling of necrophagous flies under a variety of habitats and crime conditions.
Highlights
160,000 species of Diptera have been described worldwide [1,2]
Two genera of Luciliinae, species of which are commonly known as green bottle flies, had been reported in the Neotropics: Lucilia (23 spp.) and the monotypic Blepharicnema [11,12]
A Barcode Index Number (BIN) analyses of the World dataset suggest that our putative species name for the L. sericata and Elevational range (m asl)
Summary
160,000 species of Diptera have been described worldwide [1,2]. Flies play fundamental ecological functions, like pollination, biological con trol, decomposition of organic material [2,3,4], among others. Two genera of Luciliinae, species of which are commonly known as green bottle flies, had been reported in the Neotropics: Lucilia (23 spp.) and the monotypic Blepharicnema [11,12]. Besides their role in animal decomposition, green bottle flies are efficient mechanical vectors of diseases like myiasis (tissue infestation with fly lar vae) [13], while other species are widely used in treatments of larval therapy, bio-therapy and biosurgery [14]. Our understanding of the diversity and distribution of green bottle flies in Ecuador remains factionary [6,11,12]
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