Diversity and Abundance of Blow Flies during Rainy Season in Ojo Local Government Area, Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

Baited traps have been used as low-cost tools for generating valuable data on the assemblage of carrion-associated insects in various parts of the world. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to assess the diversity and abundance of blow flies during the rainy season in Ojo Local Government Area, Lagos State, southern Nigeria using appropriate standard procedures including baited bottle traps. The data collected revealed a total of 9,497 adult blow flies comprising 2 genera and 4 species. The collection was dominated by the genus Chrysomya, with Chrysomya megacephala (48.94%) being the most abundant, followed by Ch. albiceps (46.74%), Ch. putoria (4.31%) and Hemipyrellia pulchra (0.01%). Across all species collected, except H. pulchra, for which only one female individual was collected, the abundance of female flies was significantly higher than that of males. This study provides key reference data on the local blow fly species that are likely to colonize vertebrate remains, thereby supporting minimum post-mortem interval estimations during medico-legal investigations in the area.