2. The biology of Lucilia sericata
L. sericata is a common blowfly found in most areas of the world, and the most well-known of the numerous green bottle fly species (Fig.1). This fly belongs to the family Caliphoridae within the order Diptera. It is coastal in its distribution and prefers warm and moist climates. The female lays her eggs in meat, fish, animal corpses, infected wounds of humans or animals, and excrement. The larvae of this insect feed on most decomposing tissue. Larvae of L. sericata are facultative parasites, unable to ingest the vital tissue [11]. Thanks to a well-defined life cycle, behaviour and facultative parasitism, maggots of L. sericata have been used widely in several fields, for example: 1) Forensic needs - due to the well-known life cycle, the stage of the insect’s development on a corpse is used to calculate a minimum period of colonisation, so that it can used to aid in determining the time of death of the victim [12]; 2) Clinical needs - the larval applications for maggot therapy [13-15]; 3) Research needs - the whole maggots’ body and excretions and secretions of L. sericata maggots contain substances with antimicrobial and immunomodulating character that have potential as drugs for the treatment of chronic wounds [10, 16-22].