Abstract
The family Calliphoridae is widely known to lead the colonization of corpses and their development rates are frequently used to estimate the postmortem interval. This study presents the larval growth of five forensically important species of Calliphoridae in Colombia. Rearing took place in semicontrolled field conditions where the egg masses were collected. We show curves of larval growth, larval length and time intervals to reach all immature stages for Lucilia eximia and Cochliomyia macellaria at two sites with different climatic conditions and for Chrysomya albiceps, Chrysomya megacephala and Calliphora nigribasis at one site. Overall, high temperatures speeded up the development of the species reared at two different sites, whereas low temperatures for C. nigribasis, lengthened the total development time. Differences between this study and others can be explained by the experimental conditions in the field without the possibility of strict laboratory rearing controls.
Highlights
The estimation of postmortem interval is the main application of forensic entomology
Five species belonging to Cal‐ liphoridae were reared: Lucilia eximia (Wiedemann, 1819), Cochliomyia macellaria (Fabricius, 1775), Papéis Avulsos de Zoologia, 48(6), 2008
L. eximia and C. macellaria were reared at two different sites with different temperature regimes (L. eximia at 23.13 ± 2.45°C, in Medellín and 25.30 ± 3.26°C, in Gómez Plata; C. macellaria at 25.30 ± 3.26°C, in Gómez Plata and 30.74 ± 0.71°C, in Tintipán)
Summary
The estimation of postmortem interval is the main application of forensic entomology. The laboratory rearing of insects collected from a death scene is an integral component of the analysis of entomological evidence. Mologist to make more positive species identifica‐ tions, with fly larvae as definitive species determination cannot be made given the lack of dis‐ tinct morphological differences. It allows a clear‐ er determination of the postmortem interval (PMI) since rearing of subsequent life stages provides a better approximation of the development stage of the insects at the time of collection (Byrd, 2001). Larval lengths or weights can be used to estimate PMI under two approaches. The first is to measure the accumulated amount of days or hours needed to reach a particular stage of development (Ames & Turner, 2003) and the second is the use of an iso‐
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