Pteridine fluorescence in age-determination of immature Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius) and Chrysomya rufifacies (Macquart) (Diptera: Calliphoridae)

In the practice of forensic entomology, the chronological age of the maggots retrieved from the cadaver is used to determine the minimum post-mortem interval (mPMI) i.e. minimum time of death. The conventional method of aging the maggots is based on measuring the growth rate of these maggots. Although effective, the constraint associated with conventional method necessitates the development of new age determination method, such as pteridine determination. Pteridine, a by-product of protein metabolism in insects is known to correlate with the age of a variety of dipterans. A number of studies were conducted on aging the adults of forensically important flies. In this study, pteridine was extracted from Chrysomya megacephala and Chrysomya rufifacies maggots of known age using established methods and determined by measuring the fluorescence at excitation of 330nm and the emissions between 350nm and 600nm. Results exhibited significant positive linear relationships between the pteridine accumulations and age of the fly immature. Pteridine determination is a potential new age determination tool that can be used to determine mPMI.