Conicera tibialis
| Conicera tibialis | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Diptera |
| Family: | Phoridae |
| Genus: | Conicera |
| Species: | C. tibialis
|
| Binomial name | |
| Conicera tibialis | |
Conicera tibialis, commonly known as the coffin fly, is a phorid fly in the genus Conicera known for its occurence on buried human cadavers. Adult female coffin flies can burrow up to 2 meters (6.6 ft) into soil and enter coffins in order to lay eggs on or near the resting corpse. Maggots feed on the flesh of the corpse after hatching, with a preference for lean muscular tissue. Coffin flies sometimes do not surface at all—multiple consecutive generations of coffin flies can cycle completely, entirely underground.[2] Coffin flies have been found on corpses years after death, and in 2011 an exhumed coffin in central Spain revealed a large number of coffin flies inhabiting the coffin and feeding on the cadaver 18 years after death—far beyond the 3–5 year postmortem intervals previously recorded.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ Schmitz, S.J., H. (1925). "Drei neue europäische Phoriden des Ungarischen National-Museums". Annales historico-naturales Musei nationalis hungarici (in German). 22: 119–123.
- ^ Hartiop, Emily. "The Coffin Fly". nhm.org. Retrieved 2025-06-29.
- ^ Martín-Vega, Daniel; Gómez-Gómez, Aída; Baz, Arturo (2011). "The "Coffin Fly" Conicera tibialis (Diptera: Phoridae) Breeding on Buried Human Remains After a Postmortem Interval of 18 Years". Journal of Forensic Sciences. 56 (6): 1654–1656. doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2011.01839.x. ISSN 1556-4029.