A Developmental and Genomic Study of Blowfly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) Populations to Strengthen Forensic Entomology Baseline Data

Forensic entomologists need accurate developmental and genomic data of forensically important blow flies to calculate the body's minimum post-mortem interval. Developmental and genomic data pertaining to blow fly species Calliphora coloradensis (Diptera: Calliphoridae), and Calliphora latifrons (Diptera: Calliphoridae), are lacking or absent, and are urgently needed to assist forensic entomology investigations. Increasing the availability of accurate development data for C. coloradensis and C. latifrons will allow investigators to apply it to current casework in the Southwest region of the U.S.A. This study aimed to study total development time across two temperatures, 25℃ and 30℃, on the forensically important blow flies collected from Arizona and California. Development was studied for 5 generations. This study also aimed to extract, amplify, and sequence various regions of mitochondrial DNA of C. coloradensis and C. latifrons. These data would assist in identifying forensic entomology case work species samples when relying on DNA methods. Regions of the cytochrome oxidase I gene (COI) were examined alongside analysis using phylogenetic modeling. The data collected from this study provides fundamental data to the forensic science community, particularly for forensic entomologists, that are currently absent.