About the Forensic Entomology Process, Solving Cases with the Help of Insects

About the Forensic Entomology Process, Solving Cases with the Help of Insects

About the Forensic Entomology Process, Solving Cases with the Help of Insects. Have you heard of forensic entomology? Forensic entomology is an applied science which is a combination of two fields of science, namely entomology and forensics.

About the Forensic Entomology Process, Solving Cases with the Help of Insects

Entomology is the study of insects, while forensics is the application of science to deal with criminal matters and law enforcement.

So, forensic entomology can be defined as the study of insects for use in handling criminal problems, especially those involving corpses.

Based on the field of application, forensic entomology can be divided into three categories, namely urban forensic entomology, deposit product, and medicolegal.

About the Forensic Entomology Process, Solving Cases with the Help of Insects

Whereas urban forensic entomology focuses on the impact of insect pests on the environment in which humans live, while forensic entomology of stored products focuses on the impact of insects on stored goods, especially food.

The last category that is also the main topic of discussion in my article is medicolegal forensic entomology which is used to investigate criminal cases involving humans such as murder, sexual violence, accidents, and others.

Before we discuss further about forensic entomology, we need to first know the processes that occur in humans when they die.

When a person's heart permanently stops beating, the blood flow that carries oxygen to the body's cells automatically stops so that these cells start to die.

Stopping the blood flow also causes the blood to collect at certain points so that there are parts of the body that look pale and look dark. About three hours after death, the person's body also becomes stiff due to tensing muscles due to loss of body fluids.

Over time, the bodies will begin to rot and be destroyed due to the activity of rotting bacteria. This decomposition activity produces methane gas as a byproduct so that the corpse becomes unpleasant when kissed.

About the Forensic Entomology Process, Solving Cases with the Help of Insects

However, bacteria alone are not the only cause of the destruction of corpses. Small multicellular animals such as maggots are known to live by eating the bodies of living things that have died.

The presence or absence of these maggots is then used by forensic entomologists to carry out investigations.

How Forensic Entomology Works

So, the next question is, how do you use maggots on a corpse for the purposes of handling criminal problems?

So, once a person dies, the smell will start to attract insects such as bottle fly and housefly to land and lay their eggs on it. Entering the fourth day after the person in question has died, maggots that hatch from these eggs usually begin to appear on the carcass.

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So, the presence of maggots on the body was examined to get an idea of ​​when the victim died. It should also be noted that each fly species has its own growth characteristics.

About the Forensic Entomology Process, Solving Cases with the Help of Insects

In addition to seeing the presence or absence of flies and their metamorphosis phases in corpses, measurements of the length and weight of maggots were also carried out to determine the age of maggot growth.

The remaining pupae are also examined to see which maggots appeared on the corpse first.

The results of observations and measurements of maggots were then combined with investigations regarding the state of the location of the place of death, the physical condition of the corpse, the weather at the scene, and the types of insects commonly found around the crime scene.

So that it can be known the time and process of death in question. Apart from using manual measurements and observational methods, there are several modern methods used to aid investigations in forensic entomology.

These methods include observation using an electron microscope, scanning corpses with a heat-sensing camera, immersing fly eggs in a potassium permanganate solution, and testing mitochondrial DNA to determine the origin of the fly species.

Meanwhile, for the purposes of studying and simulating forensic entomology, people often use pig carcasses as a substitute for human corpses.

Flies are the animals most often used as benchmark insects in forensic entomology because of their high mobility and sensitivity to corpses.

However, flies are not the only insects forensic entomologists rely on to solve their cases. Other scavenger insects such as ants, scavenger beetles and cockroaches have also been studied where these insects usually appear only when the carcass is more than a week old.

For certain cases, such as dying from bee allergies or wasp stings, investigators also check the victim's blood to determine whether insect sting venom is in the victim's blood. By: Ochie

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