Int J Legal Med DOI 10.1007/s00414-006-0086-x ORIGINAL ARTICLE Jens Amendt . Carlo P. Campobasso . Emmanuel Gaudry . Christian Reiter . Hélène N. LeBlanc . Martin J. R. Hall Best practice in forensic entomology—standards and guidelines Received: 9 December 2005 / Accepted: 31 January 2006 # Springer-Verlag 2006 Abstract Forensic entomology, the use of insects and other arthropods in forensic investigations, is becoming increasingly more important in such investigations. To ensure its optimal use by a diverse group of professionals including pathologists, entomologists and police officers, a common frame of guidelines and standards is essential. Therefore, the European Association for Forensic Ento- mology has developed a protocol document for best practice in forensic entomology, which includes an over- view of equipment used for collection of entomological evidence and a detailed description of the methods applied. Together with the definitions of key terms and a short introduction to the most important methods for the estimation of the minimum postmortem interval, the present paper aims to encourage a high level of competency in the field of forensic entomology. Keywords Forensic entomology . Quality assurance . Guidelines . Standards . Postmortem interval Introduction Forensic entomology is the name given to the study of insects (or even other arthropods such as mites and ticks) that form part of the evidence in legal cases [25], but it is mainly associated with death enquiries. Knowledge of the distribution, biology and behaviour of insects found where a body has been discovered can assist many types of forensic investigation by providing information on when, where, and how, under certain conditions, a crime was committed or a person died [5, 11, 12, 23, 28]. The most important application is in the estimation of the postmor- tem interval (PMI, i.e. the time since death) [2, 22, 34]. Insect specimens, such as blowfly larvae (maggots) or adults, must be considered as physical evidence just as blood stains, fingerprints, hairs, fibres, or any other biological material [31]. Therefore, insects should be processed as evidence at the crime scene examination as well as at the autopsy [12, 26]. In the recent past, several publications have highlighted the important role of quality assurance in medicine in general (e.g. [30, 34]) and particularly in forensic science (e.g. [7, 17, 35, 37]). A systematic, quality-assured approach should also exist for collection, preservation and even packaging and transport of entomological samples, not only to prevent contamina- tion or destruction of evidence and to guarantee the chain of custody, but also because forensic entomology deals with living organisms, which should be treated with care. This paper represents the opinion of the board and the members of the European Association for Forensic Ento- mology (EAFE) on minimal standards in forensic entomol- ogy (FE), ratified at the third annual meeting in April 2005 in J. Amendt (*) Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Frankfurt, Kennedyallee 104, 60596 Frankfurt/Main, Germany e-mail: amendt@em.uni-frankfurt.de Tel.: +49-69-63017571 Fax: +49-69-63015882 C. P. Campobasso Department of Health Sciences, University of Molise, via De Sanctis, 86100, Campobasso, Italy E. Gaudry Départment Entomologie, Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie, Fort de Rosny, 1 Bd T. Sueur, 93110 Rosny sous Bois, France C. Reiter Institute of Forensic Medicine, Sensengasse 2, Wien 1090, Austria H. N. LeBlanc University of Derby, Kedleston Road, Derby, DE22 1GB, UK M. J. R. Hall Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK