RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: The calliphorid Cynomyamortuorum (L., 1761) is a species of forensic interest, present mainly in the Palaearctic Region. Nearly nothing is known about its life history. NEW INFORMATION: We provide here the first data regarding pupal weight evolution during the pupal stage, female fertility and life expectancy of the species. At 22°C under a variable regime of temperatures, the egg-to-adult development time was an average of 18.05 ± 0.72 and 18.47 ± 0.67 days for females and males, respectively, in the control group. The pupal stage represented 56.7% of the total development. The development time from egg to adult and the duration of the pupal stage were significantly longer for males than for females. The measurement of pupal weight at the start of the pupal period revealed that female pupae were significantly lighter than male pupae by nearly 20%. This difference between the sexes was also observed for the dry weight of adults. An average decrease of 8.75% was observed throughout the first 8 days of the pupal stage, after which most adults started to emerge. The tested females produced an average of 176.13 ± 66.62 eggs throughout the egg-laying period. The average lifespan after emergence was 12.10 ± 4.09 days for females and 12.60 ± 2.95 days for males, with a median of 12.50 days for both sexes.
RESUMEN
Nuclear DNA-profiling from human hairs is a well-known technique in forensic investigations, but its success rate is quite low with some hair types. As nuclear DNA (nuDNA) extracted from telogen hair roots is in short supply and is often degraded, a simple and effective method of estimating the number of nuclear DNAs in telogen roots has been developed. DAPI, a fluorescent, non-destructive DNA stain, allows the visualization of "nuclei" (DAPI-positive spots the shape and size of the human follicular cell nuclei) and does not interfere with subsequent PCR analyses. We stained 3242 telogen roots from 27 donors. Surprisingly, of the 2572 club roots without any soft tissue remnants 11% contained visible "nuclei" and 3.3% even contained many. At the same time 57% of the 670 telogen roots with soft tissue remnants did not show any fluorescent "nuclei". We analysed the STR-profile of some of the roots selected by the DAPI screening, i.e. 132 telogen roots without soft tissue remnants, with a success rate of 79%. Our proposed screening method allows the DNA laboratory to analyse nuclear DNA only in the most promising hair roots.
