Direct Injury, Myiasis, Forensics First Report of Necrophagous Insects on Human Corpses in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia R. A. Alajmi, 1 H. AlGhufaili, 2 A. Farrukh, 1 H. Aljohani, 1 and A.M.A. Mashaly 1,3,4 1 Department of Zoology, College of Science, King Saud University, P. O. Box: 2455, Riyadh, 11451, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (ralajmi@ksu.edu.sa; afiafarrukh@hotmail.com; biologyhh@hotmail.com; mmashely@ksu.edu.sa), 2 Medico Legal Center, King Saud Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (ghafil888@yahoo.com), 3 Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Minia University, 61519 El Minia, Egypt, and 4 Corresponding author, e-mail: mmashely@ksu.edu.sa Received 22 March 2016; Accepted 15 June 2016 Abstract Necrophagous species of insects provide useful complementary data to estimate the postmortem interval in fo- rensic cases. Here, for the first time, we report on insect specimens collected from human corpses in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. During the study, 14 beetle larvae were collected from the outdoor corpse (case re- port one) and five flies and seven beetles were collected from the indoor corpse (case report two). Sequencing was performed to study the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) as the prospective basis of an identification technique. The sequencing focused on a section of the cytochrome oxidase I encoding region of mtDNA. Two beetle spe- cies, Dermestes frischii (Kugelann) and Dermestes maculatus (De Geer) (Coleoptera: Dermestidae), and one fly species, Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann) (Diptera: Calliphoridae), were identified. These results will be instru- mental in the implementation of a Saudi database of forensically relevant insects. Key words: DNA barcoding, Dermestes, Chrysomya, Saudi Arabia The study of necrophagous arthropods on human corpses plays an important role in forensic investigations. The importance of these in- sects in criminal investigations (a science denominated as forensic entomology), resides in the fact that they are the first to detect and to then locate a cadaver and are present in all stages of body decom- position (Byrd and Castner 2010). This means that they can be help- ful in determining the time of death or postmortem interval (PMI), as well as any postmortem transfer and the presence of drugs (Introna and Campobasso 2000). Insects are found in various places and there are many differences between insects associated with human corpses in outdoor and indoor conditions (Byrd and Castner 2010). When using arthropods to estimate PMI, it is important to consider the factors which may affect the rates and patterns of insect invasion in the body, such as the environmental conditions, includ- ing temperature, humidity, and rainfall (Goff 1992). Payne (1965) showed that many insects are associated with ca- daver after death and their pattern of succession occurs in a se- quence. Insects are attracted to a body immediately after death, and they colonize in a predictable manner. A corpse is a large food re- source for a great many creatures, and supports a large and rapidly changing ecosystem as it decomposes. The cadaver progresses through a recognized sequence of decompositional stages, from fresh to skeletal, over time. During this decomposition, it goes through dramatic physical, biological, and chemical changes. Insects at- tracted to the cadaver differed according to the decomposition stage. Some are attracted directly by the corpse, as food source or an oviposition medium, whereas others are attracted by the large aggre- gation of other insects they use as a food resource (Van den Oever 1976, Coe and Curran 1980, Henssge et al. 1995). The family Calliphoridae constitute the most common type of in- sect evidence collected during criminal investigations (Keh 1985, Catts and Haskell 1990). They are often the first organisms to arrive at a corpse after death, attracted by the odor produced in the early stages of decomposition (Goddard and Lago 1985, Smith 1986, Wall and Warnes 1994), and their activity may accelerate the decay and disintegration of the body (Mann et al. 1990). Calliphoridae are com- mon in The Kingdom of Saudi and are widely distributed throughout the country Arabia (Al-Ahmadi and Salem 1999, Al-Misned 2003, Dawah and Abdullah 2009). In addition, carrion beetles are import- ant in terrestrial ecosystems, consuming dead mammals and promot- ing the recycling of organic matter into the ecosystem (Dekeirsschieter et al. 2013). The most common carrion beetle fami- lies include Cleridae, Dermestidae, Histeridae, Scarabaeidae, Silphidae, and Staphylinidae (Byrd and Castner 2010). The key point for any taxonomic system is its ability to deliver accurate species identification, and in recent years one of the most popular methods of identification has been molecular taxonomy (Harvey et al. 2003). Several mitochondrial (mt) genes have been used in molecular taxonomy to identify the forensic species of the following genes: mt 16s rRNA gene (Li et al. 2010, Tang et al. 2012), mt cytochrome oxidase c subunit || gene (Ratcliffe et al. 2003, Ying et al. 2007), NADH gene (Zaidi et al. 2011), and mt V C The Authors 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com 1276 Journal of Medical Entomology, 53(6), 2016, 1276–1282 doi: 10.1093/jme/tjw113 Advance Access Publication Date: 24 July 2016 Research article Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jme/article/53/6/1276/2658156 by guest on 07 January 2023