Taxonomy
Subfamily:
Sarcophaginae
Genus: Sarcophaga
Meigen 1826
Subgenus: Liopygia
Enderlein 1928
Species: crassipalpis Macquart
1839
Biology
Sarcophaga
crassipalpis has successfully been reared from
pork liver (Sanjean, 1957), and is thought to complete
larval development in vertebrate and invertebrate
carcasses (Pérez-Moreno et al., 2006). This species is known to cause
myiasis in sheep and the spiny-tailed lizard Uromastyx
hardwicki, and oral, intestinal and
ophthalmomyiasis in humans (Shiota et al., 1990;
Shinonaga et al., 1999;
Martínez-Sánchez et al. 2006).
Adults are also predators of locust eggs and feed on
faeces, carrion, leaf sucking hemipteran excreta and
flowers (Castro et al. 2010). The first- and
second-instar larvae were described by Cantrell (1981),
and the third-instar by Cantrell (1981) and Ishijima
(1967). This species also has featured in forensic cases
in Australia (JFW pers. comm.).
Distribution
AFROTROPICAL, AUSTRALASIAN/OCEANIAN – (Australia – Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia), NEARCTIC, NEOTROPICAL, ORIENTAL, PALAEARCTIC.
Relevant Literature
Cantrell, B.K. (1981) The immature stages of
some Australian Sarcophaginae (Diptera:
Sarcophagidae). Journal of the Australian
Entomological Society 20, 237-248.
Castro,
C.B., Garcia, M.D., Arnaldos, M.I., and
González-Mora, D. (2010) Sarcophagidae (Diptera)
attracted to piglet carcasses including new records for
Portuguese fauna. Graellsia 66, 285-294.
Ishijima, H. (1967) Revision of the third stage larvae of synanthropic flies of Japan (Diptera: Anthomyiidae, Muscidae, Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae). Japanese Journal of Sanitary Zoology 18, 47-200.
Macquart, J. (1839) 'Diptères.'In 'Histoire naturelle des Iles Canaries'. Tome Deuxième. Deuxième partie. Contenant la Zoologie [Entomologie]. (Eds. Webb, P.B. and Berthelot, S.)pp. 99-119. (Béthune, Paris).
Martínez-Sánchez, A.,
Magaña, C.,
Pérez-Bañón, C., Rojo, S.,
and González-Mora, D. Taxonomy and larval
study of flesh flies (Diptera: Sarcophagidae)
associated with human corpses in Spain. In
'Proceedings of the Fourth Meeting of European
Association for Forensic Entomology', 2006, Bari.
Pérez-Moreno, S., Marcos-García, M.A., and Rojo, S. (2006) Comparative morphology of early stages of two Mediterranean Sarcophaga Meigen, 1826 (Diptera; Sarcophagidae) and a review of the feeding habits of Palaearctic species. Micron 37(2), 169-179.
Sanjean,
J. (1957) Taxonomic studies of Sarcophaga
larvae of New York with notes on the
adults. Cornell University Agricultural
Experiment Station Memoir 349,
1-115.
Shinonaga, S.,
and Kurahashi, H. (1969) New species of Sarcosolomonia
Baranov from New Guinea and the Solomons
(Diptera: Sarcophagidae). Pacific
Insects 11, 215-217.
Shiota, T.,
Yoshida, Y., Hirai, S., and Torii, S. (1990)
Intestinal myiasis caused by Parasarcophaga
crassipalpis (Dipera: Sarcophagidae).
Pediatrics 85, 215-217.