A month into decomposition...

23 June 2007: As you can see from the image above, not much has changed over the past week. We collected intensively yesterday, and here is the fauna:

FLIES: 3 blow fly puparia, a few adults of Phormia regina, piophilid flies (Prochyliza sp. and Stearibia nigriceps), some undetermined muscoid adults, and some maggots that are presumably the black dump fly.

BEETLES: first adult of the carrion beetle Nicrophorus tomentosus, the sap beetles Omosita colon and Necrobia rufipes, larvae of the silphid genus Necrodes, and miscellaneous rove beetles.

We are confident so far that we can apply the same data on insect development that we use on human victims to cases of black bear poaching. We still need to be careful about interpreting the faunal succession (change over time). To help with this, we are placing a pig out in the vicinity of this black bear to document the faunal succession there. That begins tomorrow afternoon (Monday, 24 June), and should last about a month. Again, the bones from the pig will be accessioned into the Museum's osteology collection.