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12 November 2018 A Preliminary Study of Carrion Insects and Their Succession in Luanda, Angola
Manuel Sebastião, Catarina Prado e Castro
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Abstract

The study of the arthropod fauna involved in carcass decomposition is crucial for medicolegal forensic purposes. This knowledge is especially needed in countries with high levels of criminality and where the arthropod fauna is still under-recorded and not well known, such as Angola. We present data from the first survey on sarcosaprophagous flies and beetles in Angola, conducted in Luanda over a 17-d period, in the wet summer season. In total, 881 adult and immature specimens, belonging to 18 species, were collected from three pig carcasses that were sampled daily. Three species were not previously known from Angola. The dominant flies were Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann, 1819) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) and Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius, 1794), but Chrysomya marginalis (Wiedemann, 1830), Chrysomya putoria (Wiedemann, 1830), and Liosarcophaga emmrichiana (Lehrer, 2002) (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) also bred on the carcasses. The dominant beetles were Dermestes maculatus De Geer, 1774 (Coleoptera: Dermestidae), Saprinus splendens (Paykull 1811) (Coleoptera: Histeridae), and Necrobia rufipes (De Geer, 1775) (Coleoptera: Cleridae). Because of the hot weather during the experimental period (∼27°C), decomposition was extremely fast. Periods of insect activity on carcasses are presented and comparisons are made with other carrion communities reported from the Afrotropical region.

© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Manuel Sebastião and Catarina Prado e Castro "A Preliminary Study of Carrion Insects and Their Succession in Luanda, Angola," Journal of Medical Entomology 56(2), 378-383, (12 November 2018). https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjy203
Received: 6 September 2018; Accepted: 13 October 2018; Published: 12 November 2018
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KEYWORDS
carrion decomposition
Coleoptera
Diptera
forensic entomology
Succession
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