Necrophagous blowflies can provide an excellent source of evidence for forensic entomologists and are also relevant to problems in public health, medicine, and animal health. However, access to useful information about these blowflies is constrained by the need to correctly identify the flies, and the poor availability of reliable, accessible identification tools is a serious obstacle to the development of forensic entomology in the majority of African countries. In response to this need, a high-quality key to the adults of all species of forensically relevant blowflies of Africa has been prepared, drawing on high-quality entomological materials and modern focus-stacking photomicroscopy. This new key can be easily applied by investigators inexperienced in the taxonomy of blowflies and is made available through a highly accessible online platform. Problematic diagnostic characters used in previous keys are discussed.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00414-017-1654-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The domestic pig (Sus scrofa) was used as a model to study arthropod succession on carcasses under tree shade and out of shade in southern Nigeria. Carcass decomposition took longer periods under tree shade than in exposed sites, at 24.5 and 16.5 days, respectively. Four decomposition stages - fresh, bloated, decay, and dry - were observed. No significant variabilities were recorded in the types and patterns of infestation of the carcasses by arthropods in both locations. Four classes of arthropods - Insecta, Arachnida, Diplopoda and Crustacea - were recorded. The class Insecta dominated the total arthropods collected with 24 families, and formed 94% of the catches. The other three classes each had one family represented, and contributed only 2% of the total catches. The calliphorids, a phorid, and sarcophagids arrived and bred on the carcasses only a few hours after death of the pigs. Families of coleopterans came during the bloated stage, and fed on the immature dipterous maggots and carrion materials. The ants (Hymenoptera) came in large numbers to eat the carcasses, and also preyed on all other fauna of the food resource. A muscid and a stratiomyiid, bred on the carcass as to the decay stage. Other insects and arthropods arrived mostly during the decay stage to feed on the carcasses. Species richness on the carcasses peaked during the decay stage.

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The muscid genera Alluaudinella Giglio-Tos, 1895, Aethiopomyia Malloch, 1921 and Ochromusca Malloch, 1927 form a monophyletic group supported by immature and adult morphology and a highly specialised snail-feeding strategy of immature stages. In contrast to the undoubted monophyly of the Alluaudinella-Aethiopomyia-Ochromusca clade, previous studies have provided contradictory hypotheses of the subfamiliar position within the Muscidae, and these three genera have been placed in the subfamily Muscinae, Dichaetomyiinae, Phaoniinae and Reinwardtiinae. The systematic position of Alluaudinella, as a representative of Alluaudinella, Aethiopomyia and Ochromusca group, is revised by means of larval morphology, biology and molecular data. Light microscopy (LM), confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are used to study the egg and all larval instars of Alluaudinella flavicornis (Macquart, 1855) and a multilocus Sanger sequencing (mS-seq) approach to examine position within Muscidae. Results are inconsistent with the traditional, morphology-based concept of the Alluaudinella-Aethiopomyia-Ochromusca clade as closely related to Dichaetomyia Malloch, 1921, and the phylogenetic analysis revealed no support for inclusion within subfamily Phaoniinae. Larval morphology in Alluaudinella differs significantly from that of Dichaetomyia (and other Phaoniinae), but resembles that of genera nested in Reinwardtiinae. Based on molecular data and larval morphology a transfer of Alluaudinella, Aethiopomyia and Ochromusca to the subfamily Reinwardtiinae is proposed.