Recent African derivation ofChrysomya putoriafromC. chloropygaand mitochondrial DNA paraphyly of cytochrome oxidase subunit one in blowflies of forensic importance.

Chrysomya chloropyga(Wiedemann) andC. putoria(Wiedemann) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) are closely related Afrotropical blowflies that breed in carrion and latrines, reaching high density in association with humans and spreading to other continents. In some cases of human death,Chyrsomyaspecimens provide forensic clues. Because the immature stages of such flies are often difficult to identify taxonomically, it is useful to develop DNA-based tests for specimen identification. Therefore we attempted to distinguish betweenC. chloropygaandC. putoriausing mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence data from a 593-bp region of the gene for cytochrome oxidase subunit one (COI). Twelve specimens from each species yielded a total of five haplotypes, none being unique toC. putoria. Therefore it was not possible to distinguish between the two species using this locus. Maximum parsimony analysis indicated paraphyleticC. chloropygamtDNA withC. putorianested therein. Based on these and previously published data, we infer thatC. putoriadiverged very recently fromC. chloropyga. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]