CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Abstract: Forensic entomology is used to estimate the date of death on the base of the insect species found on a corpse and the age that they have reached. This requires a knowledge of the rate of development, which varies with each species, and in the case of widespread species varies with the climate. This is a study of insect corpse colonization in the dry temperate climate of the populated strip at the feet of the Patagonian Andes range. Two freshly killed pig carcasses were exposed (one in the sun, the other in the shade) in San Martín de los Andes, Neuquén province, Argentina (40° 9' S, 71° 20'W). Pitfall traps baited with chicken giblets were set for comparison. Seventeen species, representing 4 orders and 10 families were collected from the carcasses. Faunistic elements new to the corpse insect fauna of Argentina are the Calliphorid flies Neta chilensis and Sarconesiopsis magellanica, Andean in distibution, the introduced earwig Forficula auriculata, and notably, adults of the Leiodid beetle Nemadiopsis fastidiosus (Farmaire), a new record for Argentina. The species colonizing the pig in the sun were different from those that colonized the pig in the shadow, especially in the earliest stages of decomposition. A pattern of spatial alternance of the bluebottle Calliphora vicina and the greenbottle Phaenicia sericata was observed, as was to be expected from the relatively high latitude. P. sericata appeared only as primary on the sunlit carcass. Hemisynanthropic species appeared. On the sunllit carcass S. magellanica developed as a secondary. Both C. vicina and C. nigribasis Marcquardt developed on the shadowed carcass. The pitfall traps yielded only five species of four families of the Orders Diptera and Coleoptera. Key words: forensic entomology, synanthropic blowflies, Andean Calliphoridae, Leiodidae.