| abstract
| - Forensic entomology is the science and study of insects and other arthropods with law-related applications. It can be divided in three subfields: urban, stored-product and medico-legal/medico-criminal. Urban forensic entomology typically concerns pest infestations in buildings or gardens that may be the basis of litigation between private parties and service providers such as landlords or exterminators. Such questions may include the appropriateness of certain pesticide treatments. Civil law actions and litigations involving athropods in dwelling or as house and garden pests are included in urban forensic entomology. Sometimes used in stored products cases call in to help determine (chain of custody). Chain of custody is when you go back through all points of possible infestation to determine who is at fault. Stored-product forensic entomology is often used in litigation over infestation or contamination of commercially distributed foods by insects. Medicolegal forensic entomology includes arthropod involvement in events such as murder, suicide, rape, physical abuse and contraband trafficking. In murder investigations it deals with what insects lay eggs when and where, and in what order they appear in dead bodies. This can be helpful in determining the time or post mortem interval (PMI) and location of the death in question. Since many insects exhibit a degree of endemism (occurring only in certain places), or have a well-defined phenology (active only at a certain season, or time of day), their presence in association with other evidence can demonstrate potential links to times and locations where other events may have occurred (e.g., an Ohio man who claimed to have been in Ohio on the date his wife and children were murdered in California was found to have grasshoppers and other nocturnal insects from the west on his car grille, indicating that the car had been driven at night to the western US, and he was subsequently convicted). Another area of medicolegal forensic entomology is the relatively new study of entomotoxicology. This particular branch involves the utilization of entomological specimens found at a scene in order to test for different drugs that may have possibly played a role in the death of the victim. The study of forensic entomology has not remained an esoteric science reserved only for entomologists and forensic scientists. The general public has become fascinated by this study and its applications since its beginning centuries ago
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)