Biology of Forensically Important Invertebrates

This book emphasizes the important role of invertebrates in forensic sciences in the detection of crimes, determining the time and place of death, estimating the minimum Post-Mortem Interval (PMI), and determining the cause of death. The initial chapter discusses the forensically essential invertebrates, especially flies under Order Diptera. Further, the book highlights the importance, biology, taxonomy, and biodiversity of flies under Order Diptera with forensic importance. It also discusses the Cuticular HydroCarbons (CHC) and spectrometry-based studies reported from flies and larvae of forensic importance. It further reviews the importance of DNA barcoding in molecular taxonomy-based studies on forensic flies through understanding, identification, and grouping the organisms. Towards the end, this book presents the applications and limitations of forensic entomology in cases of animal cruelty to a veterinary professional.

Dr. Shyamasree Ghosh (MSc, PhD) is currently working as the Scientific Officer (F), in the School of Biological Sciences, NISER, Bhubaneswar. She graduated from the Presidency College, under Calcutta University, with Zoology, Chemistry and Physiology. She perused MSc in Biotechnology under Calcutta University and completed PhD from Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (ICB), CSIR Calcutta working on glycobiology and Acute Childhood Leukemia (ALL). In her Post-Doctoral work, she worked on stem cells, invertebrate immune system and nanotechnology. She has also served as faculty in post graduate college affiliated to Bangalore University. She has worked extensively in domains of Zoology, immunology, glycobiology, sialo-biology, stem cells, computational biology and nanotechnology and authored and co-authored more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed international journals of repute, 10 books, several chapters and popular articles. She is serving as the Associate Editor for Frontiers in Immunology, editorial board member of Journal of Applied Zoological Researches and Heliyon. She is a life member of different prestigious scientific bodies. She has been awarded by different scientific bodies.

Dr. Dhriti Banerjee (MSc, PhD) is currently serving as the Scientist G and Director, Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) under Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change under Govt of India. She graduated from Presidency College under Calcutta University in the year 1991. She perused MSc in Zoology under Calcutta University and completed her PhD from Kalyani University in the year 1999. She received several awards and fellowships. She joined ZSI almost three decades past and has been relentlessly working in the domain of Entomology and created history as the first woman Director of ZSI. She has more than 25 years of Scientific and Administrative experiences. Her research interest lies in the taxonomy, forensic dipterology, climate modeling of flies (Diptera), tropic interaction, community relation in flies, and biology of pollinators and Dipterans. She has published more than 100 research articles in the peer-reviewed international journals and authored or co-authored numerous books and book chapters. She was instrumental in setting up several databases for ZSI, scientist in charge and coordinator IT, Digitization and Data basing.