Biological aspects and Molecular Identification of Forensically Relevant Blow Flies under Seasonal Temperature and Humidity Variations in Egypt

Abstract

<title>Abstract</title> Blow flies play a crucial role in determining the post-mortem interval (PMI), yet the Egyptian blow fly fauna remains incompletely investigated. Here, we assessed some biological aspects of (<italic>Lucilia sericata</italic>, <italic>Chrysomya albiceps</italic>, and <italic>Chrysomya megacephala</italic>) that had collected from rabbit carcasses in Sharkia Governorate, and then reared in the laboratory under the influence of temperature fluctuation and humidity during spring (16–20°C; 40–60%), summer (23–27°C, 54–73%), autumn (13–17°C, 51–81%) and winter (9–13°C, 47–82%). The identification of these blow was confirmed using a short 5ʹ COI fragment (~ 342 bp). The different biological aspects studied were temperature dependent. The highest number of emerging adults, number of eggs laid per female and egg hatchability were in summer, followed by spring, autumn and winter. Preoviposition period, incubation period, maggot duration and pupal duration were inversely proportional with temperature. Adult females lived longer than males during the four seasons. The longest longevity of male and female of <italic>L. sericata</italic> was in spring. While, the longest male and female longevity of <italic>C. megacephala</italic> and <italic>C. albiceps</italic> was in winter. The phylogenetic analysis revealed 97, 99 and 99% similarity between <italic>L. sericata</italic>, <italic>C. megacephala</italic> and <italic>C. albiceps</italic> and their references.