Studies on life cycles of forensically important flies, Calliphora vicina and Musca domestica nebulo at different temperatures

Blowflies (Diptera : Calliphoridae), flesh flies (Diptera : Sarcophagidae) and house flies (Diptera : Muscidae) have medical, veterinary and medico legal importance. They usually are the first to colonize a carcass, often within minutes of exposure (Catts and Goff, 1992; Greenberg, 1991; Greenberg and Kunich, 2002), if allowed access to a body, the adults feed on body secretions, including blood, and gravid females rapidly lay their eggs on the corpse. Eggs hatch in few hours depending on the temperature and larvae begin to feed on the body tissues. Once fully grown, the post-feeding larvae usually migrate away from the body to pupariate or in the immediate vicinity of the body depending on the species (Greenberg, 1991). The police or forensic entomologists can collect these stages, and can use them in calculating the postmortem interval (PM I) of a body. Different species of flies grow at different rates, and to calculate the PMI of a body developmental data at different temperatures of forensically important species is required. According to Greenberg and Kunich (2000), "a considerable variation appears in the development rates of geographically different populations of forensically important fly species. Therefore, for calculation of PMI of a body data of a particular geographical area is required". During the present study, life tables of two such important flies Calliphora vicina and Musca domestica nebulo at different temperatures were studied.