Necrophagous species of Diptera and Coleoptera in northeastern Brazil: state of the art and challenges for the Forensic Entomologist. Inventories on necrophagous insects carried out in Brazil encompass mostly species from the southeastern and central-western regions of the country. This review aims to produce the first checklist of necrophagous Diptera and Coleoptera species of forensic relevan...

Several methodological difficulties and inherent variation in the relevant entomological phenomenon, however, are still likely to confront a forensic entomologist and should be considered when using insects to estimate the postmortem interval (PMI) (1) Animals as models for human corpses, (2) Replicated carcasses, (3) Manner of death (4) Nocturnal oviposition of flies (5) Species identification...

Hematophagus arthropod bloodmeals may be useful in identifying individual hosts. To examine the application of human lice as a forensic tool, that is, as evidence of physical contact between individuals, body lice from a laboratory colony and head lice, collected from the head of infested children, were studied. The DNA profile of an individual was detectable in the pooled bloodmeals of two bod...

The application of insect and arthropod information to medicolegal death investigations is one of the more exacting applications of entomology. Historically limited to homicide investigations, the integration of full time forensic entomology services to the medical examiner's office in Harris County has opened up the opportunity to apply entomology to a wide variety of manner of death classific...

An important goal in forensic entomology is the identification of necrophagous fly species that breed directly on carcasses. In kingdom of Saudi Arabia there are rarely studies on carrion breeding blowflies. Using rabbit carcasses as a model for study, a key for the identification of three species of blowflies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) collected from deferent habitat (desert, urban, agriculture ...

Forensics and forensic science are highly popular terms nowadays thanks to famous TV series and films. Most people, inspired by these series, normally associate these terms to crime scene investigation (CSI), ocular inspection and evidence recovery. However, forensics involves much more than CSI, including a vast number of sciences, disciplines and studies such as forensic genetics, chemistry, ...