Use of necrophagous insects as evidence of cadaver relocation: myth or reality?
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Animal Behavior, Ecology, Entomology, Public Health
- Keywords
- blowflies, larvae, forensic entomology, necrophagous, biotope, taphonomy, forensic pathology, crime scene investigation
- Copyright
- © 2017 Charabidze et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2017. Use of necrophagous insects as evidence of cadaver relocation: myth or reality? PeerJ Preprints 5:e2934v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2934v1
Abstract
The use of insects as indicators of postmortem displacement is discussed in many text, courses and TV shows, and several studies addressing this issue have been published. However, the concept is widely cited but poorly understood, and only a few forensic cases have successfully applied such a method. Surprisingly, this question has never be taken into account entirely as a cross-disciplinary theme. The use of necrophagous insects as evidence of cadaver relocation actually involves a wide range of data on their biology: distribution areas, microhabitats, phenology, behavioral ecology and molecular analysis are among the research areas linked to this problem. This article reviews for the first time the current knowledge on these questions and analysze the possibilities/limitations of each method to evaluate their feasibility. This analysis reveals numerous weaknesses and mistaken beliefs but also many concrete possibilities and research opportunities.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.