CSI: Crime Scene Insects

How can insects help solve crimes? In this video, forensic entomologist Dr Amoret Whitaker discusses her work and how she came to work with some common flies that can provide important clues.

The blow flies that Dr Whitaker talks about are a family of flies (Diptera) called the Calliphoridae. They often have bodies with a metallic sheen and are also known as carrion flies, bluebottles and greenbottles. The fly pictured in the video is Cynomya mortuorum, known as the yellow-faced fly or sometimes, more gruesomely, as ‘the fly of the dead’.

Forensic entomology is just one way in which scientists work with insects. If you would like to know more about different entomologists and what they do, visit the People section of the blog.