Identifying species of insects used to estimate postmortem interval (PMI) is a major subject in forensic entomology. Because forensic insect specimens are morphologically uniform and are obtained at various developmental stages, DNA markers are greatly needed. To develop new autosomal DNA markers to identify species, partial genomic sequences of the bicoid (bcd) genes, containing the homeobox a...

The larval therapy involves the intentional application of sterilized and alive dipterans larvae on nonhealing wounds with the purpose of cleaning out the necrotic tissue to facilitate the healing process. This study aimed to evaluate the sterilization process and survival of Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius), Chrysomya putoria (Wiedemann) and Cochliomyia macellaria (Fabricius) (Diptera: Callip...

This study reports the efficacy of maggot therapy in the treatment of diabetic foot ulcer infected with multidrug resistant microorganisms. A 74 year old female patient with diabetes for over 30 years, was treated with maggot therapy using larvae of Chrysomya megacephala. The microbiological samples were collected to evaluate aetiology of the infection. The therapy done for 43 days resulted in ...

The sensitivity of parameters that govern the stability of population size in Chrysomya albiceps and describe its spatial dynamics was evaluated in this study. The dynamics was modeled using a density-dependent model of population growth. Our simulations show that variation in fecundity and mainly in survival has marked effect on the dynamics and indicates the possibility of transitions from on...

Necrophagous fly is the most common insect evidence collected during a death investigation. We analyzed the DNA polymorphism among the five forensically important fly species, namely, Lucilia sericata, Aldrichina grahami, Chrysomya megacephala, Parasarcophaga crassipalpis and Musca domestica using inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) method. Nine ISSR primers selected from 18 primers could ampli...

A total of 101 entomological specimens recovered from human cadavers were processed and studied. Analysis of the data indicated that about 95% of these specimens were maggots of flies. Maggots of the blowfly Chrysomya (Family: Calliphoridae) especially Ch. rufifacis and Ch. megacephala were predominantly found in 77 cases (76.2%) while larvae of several other flies of the genera Sarcophaga, Cal...