Coffin flies - Family Phoridae
Coffin Fly. Photo: G. Gowing
Coffin flies or scuttle flies, are minute flies that run in a jerky manner and appear to be 'hunchbacked'. They are most active at an exposed body after butyric fermentation has begun and when the corpse is starting to dry. Coffin flies are most common in buried human bodies after one year of burial and they also thrive in above ground mausoleums.
Coffin flies are able to dig their way through cracks in the soil above buried coffins. A coffin fly has been observed to dig to a depth of 0.5 m in four days, and once they have tunnelled down to a body, different individuals can move between the body and the surface quite freely.
They are also capable of completing their entire life cycle beneath the ground, so that several generations can occupy a corpse without coming to the surface. It has been calculated that with 98% survival, one pair of coffin flies in a protected place could produce 55 million flies in 60 days. Even with only 1% survival it would take only 7 months to produce 1 million flies.
Movies
Maggots can consume 60 per cent of a corpse in less than a week. Video footage: R. Major
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Further information
Copyright © Australian Museum 2003
