Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Forensically Important Blow Fly Chrysomya megacephala (F.)

Considering the significance of Chrysomya megacephala (F.) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) and their larval instars in forensic-entomological investigations, a culture of C. megacephala was established and morphological features of second and third larval instars were studied under a compound microscope. To validate the species’ morphological identification, sequencing of the ‘standard barcode region’ (658 base pairs of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene) was performed and this sequence was subjected to BLAST analysis using the NCBI database which acknowledged it as Chrysomya megacephala with 99.39% identity with sequence of same species collected from Maharashtra, India. The phylogenetic analysis congregated Jaipur population separately than other samples from different regions of India, however, not much variations were recorded. This is the maiden report of molecular identification of C. megacephala from Rajasthan.