Abstract
Two forensically essential species of flies; Boettcherisca nathani Lopes, 1961 and Boettcherisca bengalensis Nandi, 1992 are reported for the first time from northwest India. Earlier, these species were reported from Gujrat, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu states of India. The experiment was conducted in winter and monsoon season of the year 2015 in a rural area of Punjab (North India). Both of the species were collected during different decomposition stages and from different environments as well. Boettcherisca nathani was collected during the fresh stage from submerged pig carcasses (winter), while B. bengalensis was collected during bloated and fresh stage of outdoor & indoor environments (monsoon). The present work embraces the morphological characteristics and detailed explanations of the internal and external genitalia of both the species. Both of the species are different from each other by the structure of paraphallus, ventralia, inner & outer forceps, and styli. These species have not been reported from this part of India earlier. These species has a great importance in the field of forensic entomology as they are the earlier visitors of carrion after calliphorids. These flies are also of medical importance as they are responsible for causing myiasis in humans and useful in the estimation of Post mortem interval (PMI). Genus Boettcherisca itself is a subtribe, belonging to tribe Sarcophagini and family Sarcophagidae. This genus was established by Verves in 1990. The genus comprises total 18 genera and 72 recognized species worldwide, but from India total, 4 species have been reported till now, i.e., Boettcherisca nathani Lopes,1961; Boettcherisca karnyi Hardy, 1927; Boettcherisca peregrina Rohdendorf, 1937 and Boettcherisca bengalensis Nandi, 1992.