Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identifi cation No. 27 (January, 2015) ROCHEFORT ET AL. Key to Forensically Important Piophilidae (Diptera) in the Nearctic Region Sabrina Rochefort1, Marjolaine Giroux2, Jade Savage3 and Terry A. Wheeler1 1Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, Macdonald Campus, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, H9X 3V9, Canada;
[email protected],
[email protected] 2Montréal Insectarium / Space for life, 4581, rue Sherbrooke Est, Montréal, QC, H1X 2B2, Canada;
[email protected] 3Biological Sciences, Bishop’s University, 2600 College Street, Sherbrooke, QC, J1M 1Z7, Canada
[email protected]; Abstract Many species of Piophilidae (Diptera) are relevant to forensic entomology because their presence on a corpse can be helpful in estimating the postmortem interval (PMI) and document insect succession. The aims of this paper are to document the fauna of forensically relevant Piophilidae species worldwide and to present an updated checklist and identifi cation key to the Nearctic species, as existing keys are either outdated, too broad in geographical scope to be user-friendly, and/or contain ambiguous characters. Thirteen species are included in the checklist and key. Information on their biology, taxonomy, character variability, and distribution is provided, supplementing the extensive work of McAlpine (1977). Introduction stages (Martinez et al. 2006, Grisales et al. 2010). Forensic entomology is the use of insects and other Identifying species of forensic importance can arthropods as evidence in legal investigations (Catts sometimes be challenging when using morphological & Goff 1992). An important aspect of the discipline characters alone (Byrd & Castner 2001, Amendt et al. involves the estimation of the postmortem interval (PMI) 2011) and alternatives such as DNA markers have been based on arthropods associated with a body, an approach developed to identify problematic specimens (Wells that requires extensive knowledge of the local fauna and & Stevens 2008).