Notes on Methods of Rearing Sarcophaginæ (Diptera), and the Biology of Sarcophaga Latisterna Park*

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Abstract
The literature of North American economic and medical entomology contains hundreds of references to the Sarcophaginæ, one of the subfamilies of the Sarcophagidæ. An investigation of these, in the cases where they deal with the immature stages, and in which the adult has not been reared, reveals that each is usually recorded as “Sarcophaga sp.” There are but few cases, although the economic importance of the group is universally recognized, where notes on the larva have been preserved when the adult was reared. The writer has several times encountered larvæ of this subfamily while rearing parasites of Scarabaeidæ, but has been unable to identify the species, except in those cases in which the reared Sarcophaga was a male. As a result of this difficulty, the present study was undertaken to secure an understanding of the habits and of the distinctive larval characters of the Sarcophaginæ or “flesh-flies.” In this paper a few notes on the methods used in rearing Sarcophaginæ and on the biology of Sarcophaga latistera will be given. The latter is the only species, among those of this subfamily which were reared by the writer, of which the larva has not been recorded and described either by Mr. C. T. Greene or by Prof. F. M. Root.

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