By contrast, family-level identification of flesh flies is relatively straightforward. Adults
generally share the common features of grey-black longitudinal stripes on the thorax, a
heavily bristled body and a tessellated abdomen (5). Larvae have their posterior spiracles in a
deep cavity on the last abdominal segment. Adult species-level identification is difficult even
for taxonomic experts, because it requires close examination of subtle morphological
variation (6). Identification of immature specimens to the species-level is even more
challenging, as there are fewer characters to draw upon, and larval and pupal descriptions for
most carrion-breeding species are incomplete. Sarcophagids collected from crime scenes are
generally therefore reared to adults to assist with taxonomic identifications, however this is
not always possible (2, 5, 6).