Altitudinal Diversity of Forensically Important Blowflies Collected from Decaying Carcasses in Himalaya

Abstract

Blowflies use carrion as a resource for the proliferation of their progeny. Being the first visitors to arrive at corpse, these flies are used by forensic entomologists throughout the world in solving homicidal cases. A thorough knowledge about the carrion fauna of a place is a prerequisite before putting the entomological knowledge into practice. Lots of work in different parts of the world has been carried on the insect faunal composition occurring on carcasses. But no study has ever been carried to correlate the effect of altitude on carrion insect fauna. It is a well-established fact that with change in altitude, faunal diversity and composition changes and flies are no exception to this fact. Thus, the present study is the first attempt to correlate faunal composition with shift in altitude in Himalayan regions.