Insect faunal succession on white-tailed deer carcasses and comparison to past succession studies on pigs in southwest Virginia

Insect faunal succession was studied on four white-tailed deer carcasses in southwest Virginia in the summers of 2009 and 2010.  Deer were obtained immediately after being harvested.  Larval and adult insect sampling began the day after death and continued for 13 days.  The patterns of insect succession between the summers of 2009 and 2010 were similar at α = 0.05.  Necrophagous insects arrived in a successional pattern as observed on other animal models (e.g. pigs) during past studies conducted in southwest Virginia.  The dominant dipteran was Phormia regina (Calliphoridae), while the dominant coleopterans were Necrophila americana (Silphidae) and Euspilotus assimilis (Histeridae).  Analysis of species occurrence compared necrophagous insect species present in this study to those observed during past studies with pigs in the same area.  The occurrence of individual insect species varied between the deer study and past pig studies.  Our data indicate that the determination of PMI_MIN based on necrophagous insect succession patterns in wildlife poaching should be done with carcass specific (e.g. deer) baseline succession data.