Insect infestations of small corpses

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Abstract
Reproducible studies of the insects associated with small (< 1 kg) corpses are hampered by dramatic variation, for no obvious reason, in the background carrion-breeding fauna. This variation can lead to undue emphasis being attached to the results from exposure of one, or a small number, of corpses. An experiment with much larger numbers of mice (319) and birds (38) has shown that in eastern Ireland there are at least 29 species of carrion insect (excluding Coleoptera) breeding in such corpses, many of them only in deciduous woodland, where the greatest number and variety of small vertebrates would be found. Inventories of the post-mortem fates of mice and birds are drawn up, and the effects of competition assessed by experiment. Some species of sarcophagid fly larvae kill their competitors. Of the 14 Irish sacrophagine species, only four bred in corpses. There was a gross imbalance of Calliphora spp., with hardly any C. vomitoria in any bait tested.