In this assignment, I’m going to ask that you imagine you’ve been called into a case in which the body is in an advanced state of decay —so much so that the only insects left on the body are beetles. You need to do a literature search for forensically important beetles, figure out what those beetles can tell you about the case, and what beetles you are likely to find on the body. Finally, you need to pull whatever resources you can involving the identification of beetles (keys to larvae and adults) and developmental data for two of the forensically important beetle larvae.
If you need a place to start, look up this article: Midgley, John M., Cameron S. Richards, and Martin H. Villet. "The utility of Coleoptera in forensic investigations." Current Concepts in Forensic Entomology. Springer Netherlands, 2009. 57-68. This will give you a good overview of beetles in forensics.
The primary purpose of this assignment is to see how well you can search for resources; therefore, the actual written portion of this assignment will be very short.
For the assignment itself you are required to:
Write 1 paragraph giving a simple summary of your findings about what beetles can tell us about the decomposed body, and which families are most likely to be found on a body in this state of decay.Create a list of forensically important beetle species, correlated with the stage of decomposition at which the species is most likely to be foundFind at least 2 keys to the larvae and 1 key to the adults of your identified forensically important species (add these to your personal article collection!Create development tables for at least 2 of your identified forensically important beetle larvae, and include them at the end of your paper.Please include all of your references in a comprehensive bibliography in ESA format. (Links to an external site.) Upload your work in PDF format. You do not need to include the PDF version of your references.