Blow fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) in Thailand: distribution, morphological identification and medical importance appraisals.

The blow fly is considered to be a medically-important insect worldwide. This review is a compilation of the currently known occurrence of blow fly species in Thailand, the fly’s medical importance and its morphological identification in all stages. So far, the 93 blow fly species identified belong to 9 subfamilies, including Subfamily Ameniinae, Calliphoridae, Luciliinae, Phumosiinae, Polleniinae, Bengaliinae, Auchmeromyiinae, Chrysomyinae and Rhiniinae. There are nine species including Chrysomya megacephala, Chrysomya chani, Chrysomya pinguis, Chrysomya bezziana, Achoetandrus rufifacies, Achoetandrus villeneuvi, Ceylonomyia nigripes, Hemipyrellia ligurriens and Lucilia cuprina, which have been documented already as medically important species in Thailand. According to all cited reports, C. megacephala is the most abundant species. Documents related to morphological identification of all stages of important blow fly species and their medical importance also are summarized, based upon reports from only Thailand. KeywordsBlow fly, Distribution, Identification, Medical Importance, Thailand International Journal of Parasitology Research ISSN: 0975-3702 & E-ISSN: 0975-9182, Volume 4, Issue 1, 2012 Introduction Thailand is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It comprises 77 provinces that cover 6 regions by location and its hot and humid climate supports a variety of tropical ecosystems. Unlike the temperate zone, tropical ecosystems provide wider niches for the survival of organisms, which are thus able to support a much larger variety of plant, animal and microbe species. Blow flies form one of many insect groups that are commonly found in the country and their families are classified as follows: Kingdom Metazoa, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Hexapoda, Order Diptera, Suborder Brachycera and Family Calliphoridae. They are characterized typically as being metallic blue, green, purple, or non metallic in color and they vary in size [1]. Blow fly larvae serve as carrion feeders that play an important role in recycling organic materials in the ecosystem. Furthermore, adults have been reported as pollinators of mango flowers in Australia [2] and Taiwan [3]. Over 1,450 blow fly species are distributed over all continents in the world, except Antarctica [1]. Based on citation in this review, the first document related blow fly was reportedly found in 1976 [4] and the first taxonomic key for blow flies (subfamily Calliphoridae) in Thailand was documented by Tumrasvin et al, [5]. The first text book relating to medically-important blow fly species of Thailand was written in the Thai language in 2010 by Associate Professor Dr. Kom Sukontason and Associate Professor Dr. Kabkaew Sukontason [6]. Over the past 36 years, there have been many scientific articles that demonstrate blow fly occurrence in several parts of Thailand as well as the fly’s biological aspects and medical importance. Although this information has increased gradually, it is still scattered. Therefore, the objectives of this review were to gather and update all information on blow flies, based upon scientific reports from only Thailand and the experience of this author. This review emphasized on mainly 3 aspects, including (i) the occurrence of blow fly species, (ii) morphological identification of all stages and (iii) their medical imCitation: Nophawan Bunchu (2012) Blow fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) in Thailand: Distribution, Morphological Identification and Medical Importance Appraisals. International Journal of Parasitology Research, ISSN: 0975-3702 & E-ISSN: 0975-9182, Volume 4, Issue 1, pp.-57-64. Copyright: Copyright©2012 Nophawan Bunchu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.