when you look at an animal from afar you
say well it’s no longer alive and on
some level you’re right that animal is
not alive but on a different level it’s
very much alive the microbes that are
present in your body begin to consume
the tissue so technically there is still
life associated with the structure that
you see in front of you
entomology is the study of insects and
their relatives forensics is anything
dealing with the court of law on
obviously forensic entomology is insects
dealing with human matters such as
determining when someone died or how
long someone might have been colonized
while there are a lot my research
focuses on the decomposition process and
I’m able to apply that in a lot of
different areas but one area where I’ve
specialized is how to understand how
things decompose and then apply that
information in Criminal Investigations
to determine how long an individual may
have been dead or colonized by these
insects we have a wheeled body donation
program and so we we usually get between
about five and six bodies that are
donated tests and they’re they are put
out and allowed to decay and we monitor
that decay process over time the insect
community that is present on the bottom
will change what we see initially are
the Flies that come in they will
colonize the body and what we see is
that they come in lay their eggs or
larvae in different offices that the
body the nose the mouth the ears the
genital area they will initiate the
consumption of the body
and what we see from there’s beetle
species will come in though those
beetles will feed on the body they may
feed on the larvae and the beetles are
responsible for really cleaning up the
remains at the end once we have this
pattern that would of how things change
through time how the odors change how
the microbes change which insects are
present and not then we can use this
information to estimate the time since
death mother nature is a very efficient
machine it’s very good about recycling
nutrients and that’s where these insects
come in is that they have evolved to
take care of these unpredictable
resources in nature and they have to
compete with other insects other
vertebrates to get to that resource so
they do it very fast
say well it’s no longer alive and on
some level you’re right that animal is
not alive but on a different level it’s
very much alive the microbes that are
present in your body begin to consume
the tissue so technically there is still
life associated with the structure that
you see in front of you
entomology is the study of insects and
their relatives forensics is anything
dealing with the court of law on
obviously forensic entomology is insects
dealing with human matters such as
determining when someone died or how
long someone might have been colonized
while there are a lot my research
focuses on the decomposition process and
I’m able to apply that in a lot of
different areas but one area where I’ve
specialized is how to understand how
things decompose and then apply that
information in Criminal Investigations
to determine how long an individual may
have been dead or colonized by these
insects we have a wheeled body donation
program and so we we usually get between
about five and six bodies that are
donated tests and they’re they are put
out and allowed to decay and we monitor
that decay process over time the insect
community that is present on the bottom
will change what we see initially are
the Flies that come in they will
colonize the body and what we see is
that they come in lay their eggs or
larvae in different offices that the
body the nose the mouth the ears the
genital area they will initiate the
consumption of the body
and what we see from there’s beetle
species will come in though those
beetles will feed on the body they may
feed on the larvae and the beetles are
responsible for really cleaning up the
remains at the end once we have this
pattern that would of how things change
through time how the odors change how
the microbes change which insects are
present and not then we can use this
information to estimate the time since
death mother nature is a very efficient
machine it’s very good about recycling
nutrients and that’s where these insects
come in is that they have evolved to
take care of these unpredictable
resources in nature and they have to
compete with other insects other
vertebrates to get to that resource so
they do it very fast
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